MAY 19
Dave Goldfish awoke to find himself feeling happy. In fact he felt very happy. He was getting married. He was getting married in two weeks. Then the sleep left his mind. They had two weeks to prepare, and a lot had happened in th past few days. Bastion and Operation: Zero Tolerance had attacked the X-Wars populace, capturing his friends and doing worse, which had resulted in Dave's death and the destruction of C&C. However, Dave being Dave wouldn't let death stop him and he returned to life and rebuilt his base in moments. Bastion had escaped, whilst Dave had helped to free his friends and so he would wait for another day. However that was now the past, and it was the future that concerned him now. He turned to watch his fiancée sleeping. Jo was there, looking ever so peaceful. Dave smiled, got up and got ready for the day. He had a lot of work to do. When Jo awoke he had made her breakfast and left it on a tray next to her bed with a single red rose. She smiled and telepathically said :::Thanks:::
Dave was in his office when he received the message and smiled. I have to find the old team he thought to himself. He knew vaguely where his old friends were, but ever since they had left the planet, contact had become less frequent. He switched on his computer and sent out a message to all the various beacons he had in the galaxy that Dave Goldfish, formerly of Andromeda, needed to speak to his old friends. All he had to do now was wait for them to contact him. When Jo came to the office later that day, they started to make preparations, a guest list for the wedding and a guest list for the reception. By the end of the day they had worked on the guest list for the wedding, to be invited by direct communication. The reception would require special invitations. It was going to be a long two weeks. Then he got a call from Blaquesmith...
MAY 20
The day was quiet until the afternoon when Dave got a call from an old friend.
"Hello, Barry," he said as he spoke to Barry Andrews, one of his team from when he was a cadet at C&C. They and five others were the group known as Andromeda, and they were the cadet team to be reckoned with in their time.
"Well, well, well," said Barry. "You have done alright for yourself. How's it going Bandit?"
"I dropped that codename when I left Andromeda. Listen, I need a favour from the old team."
"Go ahead."
"I need a band to play at an event I'm holding and I wanted you six."
"What sort of event is it?"
"My wedding."
"About time." He turned away from the com screen and called out "Spark, you owe me a tenner." A shout of `damn' was heard off screen, and Dave smiled. John `Spark' Stevens would have been his choice for best man if he hadn't met Blaquesmith. Barry turned back to the screen. "Dave, we'd be delighted to come. All of us." He smiled. "It's been a while since we had a reunion, Bandit."
"Too long. I'll send details across to you."
"Okay, Dave. We're on Chandilar."
"Playing for the Sh'iar?"
"Well, doing a bit of `work' anyway."
"I see. Later, old friend."
"See ya, Dave." The com link closed down and Dave sat back in his chair, and smiled. The first time he'd done this was so much easier. He opened up a file on his computer and began to add some information to something. Jo came in and looked at the screen.
"What are you working on?" she asked.
"Oh, wedding details."
"A holofield," she read out.
"Yes," said Dave. "I'm reconfiguring C&C's holo emitters to create something special. Now go away."
"I can't. We have to go through the progress reports for April."
"No rest for the wicked." Dave saved the program and shut it down. "Right, what's first?"
MAY 21
"Well?" asked Jo as she teleported Dave from the Bar and Grille back to their room in C&C. It was early morning in the UK but it was the afternoon in the US.
"He did it," replied Dave. "He's human."
"Wow." Jo was impressed. "What's he like?" she asked and Dave smiled.
"Plain, fairly ordinary. Not me by any stretch of the imagination."
"I refuse to respond to that until I've seen him," laughed Jo.
"No, the correct response is `well, of course he isn't, Dave, no one
can compare to you." Dave chuckled.
"Like I'm gonna say that!"
"Well, in that case I'll just have to tickle you until you do say it."
"That isn't fair, you use the iron in my blood to tickle me."
"Yes," said Dave, a sparkle in his eye. "I know. I'll be gentle."
"I've heard that before," she said and smiled as she switched out the light.
Later that day, Dave was working in his office, inviting his friends from the Fringe to the wedding. He asked Blaquesmith to be his best man and Jo asked Crystal to be her maid of honour. They had accepted and so the plans were gathering apace. Fever, Savage, Gizmo, Shadowcat, Monterey and Decibel and his party were all said they were coming so it was turning in to quite a gathering, what with the Fringe and Andromeda coming. Dave also made a few adjustments to the wedding program he was creating. Blaquesmith's transformation needed to be taken in to account - he couldn't have the ushers vaporise the best man because they didn't recognise him. He also updated his file on Blaquesmith's powers and the lack of time travel. He wondered what affect that would have in the long run, but second guessing the universe wasn't his job. At least not any more. He finished the work he had to do and was about to call it a day when he received a priority `A' transmission. These were few and far between so Dave switched on the com pad. The screen in front of him flickered to life. It was Lord Geneva.
"David," he said, "we need to talk."
"What about?" asked Dave.
"Your wedding. I know the truth about you, David."
"And that truth is?"
"That you disrupted the time stream and when you fixed it you were no longer married."
"You know where Darkside's Bar and Grille is?"
"Yes."
"I'll meet you there tonight, our time."
"Making it daytime at the Bar. I'll see you then." He cut the transmission, leaving Dave slightly worried.
MAY 22
At midnight, British Summer Time, Dave arrived in the Bar and Grill. He walked over to the bar, where Roman was serving.
"Guardian," he said. "You have a guest. He awaits you over there," and he indicated towards the corner of the room.
"Thanks. What's happening?" he asked as a several members of the Fringe rushed across the room.
"Chocolate hunt. If you value your sanity, don't ask."
"Probably best. Can I have a bottle of whiskey and two glasses?"
"Your guest has ordered that already."
"Ta," said Dave and walked over to Lord Geneva.
"Goldfish," he said.
"My Lord," replied Dave, and sat down. "So, you want to talk?"
"Yes. You know my powers include time travel, do you not?"
"Of course, 200 years either way of our present. Your point?"
"My powers, whilst not completely protective for me from the time stream, do alert me to minor continuum shifts. The subtle ones. I felt the shift fairly strongly this time and so I deduced it had something to do with Jo, as my powers do respond strongly to my own flesh and blood. I remembered that you two were married, but I knew that you were not. I went back in time to see if I can find the solution. I was there when you proposed for the first time and she accepted. Then you kissed and your demeanours altered so that whilst you were the same people you had were, you were also someone else as well. Then after you spoke to her and she refused to marry you. Yet you stayed together, all of which intrigued me. Dave, what is going on?"
"I'd like to answer you, but I can't."
"Then I will ask Jo," he said.
"That's unfair," said Dave. "It is a something that only a few people know, and when I feel the time is right I shall tell you."
"Yes, but you also know that I know you altered the time stream."
"Ah." Dave had forgotten that.
"Precisely." Geneva took a drink. "So I travelled through the ages, searching out the cause of what had happened. And I found it, though it taxed me to my travel limit. I watched you converse with the avatarr, heard you speak with a being who was in fact yourself. I saw the statue of my daughter, a person who would not be born for the better part of 200 years. I watched you return home, and then I followed your counterpart, though it was difficult. I saw the past that you and Jo shared."
"All of it?"
"All of it. Including her death and sudden resurrection."
"You were there?"
"Yes." Dave sighed and took another drink.
"From that point I saw what the future held if she was not resurrected and I believe you did what you thought best. I do not know if I would have done things differently." You would, thought Dave, remembering his conversation with the other Geneva before he died.
"So what's your point?"
"My point is that it is about bloody time." Dave was stunned. "You should have convinced her to marry you, years ago." He paused and laughed. "I see I still have the ability to surprise you. That is good. Keep her happy, David." He finished his drink. "So what do you do here?" he asked as he looked about the bar.
"I've asked myself that ever since I came, but whatever it is I do, I do it well enough."
"You always did." Then someone shouted out 'Aardvark!'
"What the hell?" said Geneva.
"Excuse me a moment," said Dave. He turned away from the old man and shouted out in response "Dodecahedron!" He turned back to Geneva.
"And?" asked the Lord.
"Just a normal day, down the B&G," said Dave as various words flew about he Bar in response.
"And you are marrying my daughter? God help your children," smiled Geneva. "David, I shall see you on the day. Good health." Geneva disappeared, silently with no flashes of light as Jo's teleportation signature caused.
"Still gives me the creeps when he does that," he said to the bottle in front of him, and he then he could have sworn he heard very faint laughter. He finished the drink and decided not to awaken Jo to bring him home, but to do some work over in C&C USA. The rebuilding was slower than he'd expected it to be, after all the C&C UK had taken
only a minutes to rebuild. Ah well, he thought. May as well go and get some work done. He contacted Adam Drake, his commander of the US base and waited for to be picked up.