to the last echo
He takes her by the shoulders. "Try."
"Steel, I can't do it," she says. "When I take back time, I have Time to work against, but here we're out of time. Outside Time. I can't take us any further back than the last point inside the discontinuity."
"That's not good enough."
"You know the example I always use! The bouncing ball. I can take it as far back as you like within the limits of the bouncing, but I can't take it to a point before it started to bounce. Do you think I wouldn't already have done it if I could?"
"You don't always push yourself as far as you can."
"I do when you need me to."
"Well," he says. "Then there's no way out."
"There never was," she says, and she would have turned away in weariness if he had not been holding her so very tightly.
---
He takes her by the shoulders. "Try."
"Steel, I can't do it," she says. "When I take back time, I have Time to work against, but here we're out of time. Outside Time. I can't take us any further back than the last point inside the discontinuity."
"That's not good enough."
"You know the example I always use! The bouncing ball. I can take it as far back as you like within the limits of the bouncing, but I can't take it to a point before it started to bounce. Do you think I wouldn't already have done it if I could?"
"You don't always push yourself as far as you can."
"I do when you need me to."
"Well," he says. "Then there's no way out." And at that moment she can tell that he knew, that he always had known, but that his nature had compelled him to go through the motions, step after step, even though he had already despaired. His eyes are heavy with it, grey and flat and hopeless, rain in winter onto ice. The stars sleet by outside and the two of them are doomed together.
---
He takes her by the shoulders. "Try."
"Steel, I can't do it," she says. "When I take back time, I have Time to work against, but here we're out of time. Outside Time. I can't take us any further back than the last point inside the discontinuity."
"That's not good enough."
"You know the example I always use! The bouncing ball. I can take it as far back as you like within the limits of the bouncing, but I can't take it to a point before it started to bounce. Do you think I wouldn't already have done it if I could?"
"You don't always push yourself as far as you can."
"I do! When you need me to." She's flashingly furious for a moment, but then she calms herself, letting the anger run off and away. What does she expect from him? Any sort of emotion? Any sort of admission of emotion? She'd thought that she'd trained herself away from that decades ago.
---
He takes her by the shoulders. "Try."
"Steel, I can't do it," she says. "When I take back time, I have Time to work against, but here we're out of time. Outside Time. I can't take us any further back than the last point inside the discontinuity."
"That's not good enough."
"You know the example I always use! The bouncing ball. I can take it as far back as you like within the limits of the bouncing, but I can't take it to a point before it started to bounce. Do you think I wouldn't already have done it if I could?"
"You don't always push yourself as far as you can." The words could have been taken as a sneer, but they're no more than a statement of fact. He is uncompromising. He will accept nothing less from her than everything. The fact that she regularly gives it is quite beside the point. He is edged; she is less painful.
---
He takes her by the shoulders. "Try."
"Steel, I can't do it," she says. "When I take back time, I have Time to work against, but here we're out of time. Outside Time. I can't take us any further back than the last point inside the discontinuity."
"That's not good enough."
"You know the example I always use!" She sighs. "The bouncing ball. I can take it as far back as you like within the limits of the bouncing, but I can't take it to a point before it started to bounce." Her hands twitch; she is so used to making the gestures as she explains calmly and gently to some poor human, trying to give them a vague idea of her capacities in a way that humans can understand. "Do you think I wouldn't already have done it if I could?" Surely he must know that if she could simply wrench them out of there by an effort of will, she would already have done so. Surely he must.
---
He takes her by the shoulders. "Try."
"Steel, I can't do it," she says. "When I take back time, I have Time to work against, but here we're out of time. Outside Time. I can't take us any further back than the last point inside the discontinuity."
"That's not good enough." He doesn't say it as a condemnation, merely as a statement of fact. It is not good enough. She must do better. Time itself must bend and break because he wills it so. It is necessary, and therefore it will happen.
---
He takes her by the shoulders. "Try."
"Steel, I can't do it," she says. "When I take back time, I have Time to work against, but here we're out of time." She corrects herself. "Outside Time." Time is a river, but this place where they are now is a dead lake, a single drop of water outside all boundaries. Further than they have ever been before, not forward or backwards but simply beyond. "I can't take us any further back than the last point inside the discontinuity." And when was that? She can't even be sure when they were cut adrift and left to nothingness. Neither of them knew it until they opened the door and saw the emptiness outside. There is nothing else now for them except this room and each other, in a place where there is neither space nor time.
---
He takes her by the shoulders. She can feel the warmth of his hands through the fabric of her sleeves. "Try."
---
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