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Time Again

Chapter 5: Seeing You

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Rita woke to the steady sound of mechanical beeping beside her. Funny, that had never been her alarm…

This wasn't Punxsutawney, nor was it the wreckage of her car or her bedroom back in Pittsburgh. An IV was held into her arm via tape. Her left hand was bruised, but clean. Florescent hospital lights illuminated the figure of her mother, slumped over in sleep in the chair beside her bed. “Mommy?” Rita tried to ask, but it came out more like a croak.

And then finally, Rita remembered how to cry as her mom crossed the distance between them. "Everything's going to be okay, baby girl," said Mrs. Hanson over and over again, even as she could barely get out the words herself.

For the first time, Rita could believe it.


 

In between visits from her dad and siblings came a parade of medical professionals with clipboards and stern expressions. Rita's final toll came to a broken leg, multiple lacerations (small miracle that nothing got infected beyond the point of no return), and more broken ribs than Rita wanted to think about. It was hard for Rita to follow everything in her current state, but the one thing phrase she heard over and over was "physical therapy."

Well, she could live with that. Live, ha, that was hilarious. Rita couldn't tell if it was the exhilaration of being alive or the pain meds. Probably both.

Finally, the head doctor convinced Mrs. Hanson to let Rita get some rest. (Ridiculous, given she hadn't moved an inch from the bed but what could you do). Rita's mom squeezed her hand. “I know God and I have been on the outs lately, but I’ll give him a second chance on account of you. Or maybe I should be saving all my thanks for your celebrity boyfriend,” she teased.

“Is that so?” Rita asked, her voice heavy with sleep.

She faded in and out for the next few hours, but it was a nice feeling. Ironic, given she still couldn’t feel her toes, but some nice person in an official uniform promised her she’d get that back eventually. Sleep and morphine made her giggly.

Eyes closed, she could hear the conversations of the hospital staff as they came in and out. It was oddly peaceful just listening to the world around her. “It’s not everyday a crash patient gets here in that condition,” remarked one. “It would be awesome if we could get them all this early, but usually when it happens in the middle of Bumblefuck, Nowhere, it’s way too late when you find them.”

“Yeah, well, this lady should thank the psychic weathermen of the world.”

Rita stirred out of her haze. “Well, that and Terry Gross or whoever for not cutting him off when things got weird.”

“I guess giving an awards speech makes for a captive audience.”

“He's just lucky someone actually took the whole thing seriously.”

“I think she's the lucky one. How many people flip their car 50 miles from nowhere and get found?”

Rita tried to pull the threads together, but things were slippery again, albeit this time from exhaustion and medication. Instead, she let herself fall back into sleep, knowing this time it was safe.

Rita woke again to the sound of the door opening. She had enough strength to turn her head.

The man on the other side entered gingerly. Grey had crept up his temples in the last few years. Looked good.

He looked nervous, which was hilarious given she was the one with an IV in her arm and doped on morphine. So she smiled.

The man’s eyes softened, and he smiled back.

“Hey there, Phil,” Rita whispered.

 


 

It was pleasant, drifting in and out of consciousness and catching snippets of conversation between her family or Phil. Her brothers in particular were overly pleased to have their pet local celebrity back, even if just for a temporary emergency that was resolving itself by the day. The company of Present Phil was a nice bridge between the strange, crumbling world she left and the present. Still, Rita insisted that any serious conversation occur when she wasn't on morphine.

The day of her hospital discharge, Phil helped push Rita via wheelchair outside to a small courtyard garden, away from the hustle and bustle. Rita was already getting the hang of using the crutches, but not even Phil was going to let her attempt going all the way from the fifth floor to the courtyard.

Rita breathed in the crisp, outdoor air. It was nice to feel the sun again.

“So.”

Phil smiled shyly, then waggled his eyebrows. “So.”

It had been so, so easy these last few days to fall back into the familiar rhythm between them. It couldn't last, but Rita would take it for now. “I've only heard the gossip. What exactly did you do?”

Phil looked positively sheepish. “I don't know else to explain it, but I couldn't remember anything until...I guess until you were actually experiencing it in real time.” He looked down. “You said entire loops passed within the blink of an eye right, right?” The expression on Phil's face was odd, and it occurred to Rita how unused he must be to putting anything about Punxsutawney to spoken word. “Something felt out of place the whole night. And then it was my time for me to go on stage, and I was doing fine until the woman introducing me mentioned the story I did last year in Ayer.”

Rita waited for him to continue.

“And then it occurred to me that I had heard that name before. I was just thanking my awesome team and everyone at the network when I remembered how you told me back in Punxsutawney that’s where you would be bleeding out in 2023.”

“So then…”

Phil smiled out of the corner of his mouth. “I had a mic, and thank God someone who had access to a medical helicopter decided to humor the crazy guy on national radio.”

Rita tried to picture it. A small sound escaped her mouth, and then she was full on laughing, until she moved a rib too hard and had to stop before she re-injured herself.

“Easy there, tiger,” Phil managed, but he wasn’t doing much better. Two laughing idiots in a hospital. There were worse places to be.

“Are you going to have a career after this?”

“I have no fricking idea. I just know that I’m getting our publicist an amazing Christmas gift this year.” He rolled his eyes. “Stop looking at me like that, I'll figure something out.” 

“So it really…”

Phil’s expression turned serious. “I’ve never actually known. I still don’t, not really. I take it on faith that I learned piano in a time loop, and that I’m not insane. This is the first time I’ve had any…” He bent his head. “Rita, I am so, so, sorry. There were times when I would have killed to have someone believe me, but I never meant for-”

She batted at him lazily with her good arm. “You’re an idiot.” But Phil wasn’t taking the usual bait, so she continued. “I assumed you never figured out the why of any of this?”

“Nope.”

“I figured as much. Look, I don’t think magical time loops, whether they physically happened like in your case, or just happened in the head, like for me...whatever they are, I don’t think you caused them. The only thing that caused any of this was that patch of ice on Contestoga Ridge Road.”

Phil nodded. Rita couldn’t tell if he believed what she was saying, but he seemed to accept the clemency regardless.

The courtyard's clock chimed the hour. Eventually her parents would be here. If Rita could learn anything from her never-ending day, it was to take the opportunity to set some things to rest. “Phil...why didn’t you ever tell me?” Her voice was quiet but heavy with years-old pain.

Phil met her eyes this time. “I still ask myself that. I don't really know. That year after it all ended, I couldn't believe I got to be a person again, and that I got to be with you.” He smiled fondly. “I felt like I was going to burst out of my skull with it sometimes.” Then his expression fell. “But then...I dunno. I’d like to think I've gotten a lot better after Punxsutawney, but I was still a former immortal with PTSD trying to fit back into the life of a reformed chauvinist.” He licked his lips. “I did take your suggestion of seeing a therapist, actually.”

Rita didn’t realize this all could still hit like a bullet to the chest. “Yeah?

“She meant well, she really did, but I should have known better. Should have been more careful about who I talked to about my experiences about time loops and sticking my head in the donut fryer.”

Rita could have screamed at the futility of it all, about the chances they lost before she even knew they were there.

Phil took her good hand within his. “It’s not your fault. It was a good idea, and you were right for insisting I take care of my shit. Besides, eventually it worked out. I um...have a good therapist I talk to on Skype every Thursday. It’s really hard to find someone who is both a qualified mental health professional and doesn’t think you're certifiably crazy for this, but they do exist.

Phil in weekly therapy. It was a goddamn Christmas miracle. “So you’re..." Rita couldn't find the right word. "Okay?” Rita asked. She hadn’t let go of Phil’s hand.

“Yeah.” he smiled. “I mean, I’ve got my demons as much as the next guy, but things are pretty good. I wish things had been...different with us, but I think it was good for me to get a fresh start with this new job. Don't feel like I'm living in another man's shoes so much.”

Rita was acutely aware of the three years of distance between them, of the experiences and people in Phil's life that she knew nothing about. “Are you seeing-”

“Not at the moment,” Phil finished quickly. “There’s been a few things, but nothing that got serious. You?”

“Somehow I've been too busy with..." Rita wanted to cry. "I nearly bled out in my shit wagon of a car-”

“Do not say that about Honky, may he rest in peace-”

“-and it would have been for nothing.” There was something hard in her throat. “I'm fucking hypocrite, Phil. All that stuff that Rita-in-the-Loop said about making the best of everything with unlimited chances? I couldn’t even do that with a promotion to Senior Producer, I’m-”

“Human, for God’s sake.” Phil interrupted, annoyed. He brought his other hand to her own, so that her palm was enclosed by his gentle grip. “Geez, Rita. Do you think I liked you because you were some kind of a manic pixie dream girl?”

“Since when do you know that term?”

“I now work with bonafide lesbians, Pop Culture Feminism 101 is part of the work relationship contract. Seriously...that’s what I always loved about you. That you’re so fucking stubborn, and irritating-”

“Thank you?”

“But you don’t stop trying for something, anything, even if it’s just to fall down another hole and wrestle yourself out of it again,” He rubbed his fingers slowly over the back of her palm. “You’re a lot better than you think, Rita Hanson.”

They stayed like that for a long, quiet moment. “So where do we go from here?” Rita finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Phil admitted. It would be so easy, to give Phil a hug and part ways then and there. Add him back as a friend on Facebook. Send the inevitable wedding gift in a few years, wish him well and mean it.

The clock chimed again. “We should get you back, your folks are going to think I kidnapped you.”

Rita nodded.

She could see the future beyond the hospital's swinging doors. Long months of recovery, full of more Hallmark movies than she could stand and loving every minute of it. Phone calls and coffee with friends old and new. As many books as she could possibly read before she died. It would be a fine life.

Rita wanted more. “Hey Phil?”

"Yeah?" he stopped the chair to meet her gaze.

“If you ever wanted to, you know, play Super Smash Brothers sometime…”

“I would love nothing more.”

Notes:

I always wanted to explore an AU where Phil and Rita experience the loop together. The problem is that there isn't really a karmic reason for the loop to happen to Rita, so I played around with the idea of an older, more weary version of her and ended up with this.

Apologies for any Super Smash Brothers sacrilege, I actually haven't played it much. I just thought it would be hilarious if Magikarp was a character.

Thank you to my betas, and to the amazing Yuletide discord group! Y'all are lifesavers.