[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/ZfvPPwT.png[/img][/center]
[b]Baxter Building, New York[/b]

[color=#9fc5e8]“Now?!"[/color][color=#ffffff] Sue Storm shouted at the top of her voice. [/color][color=#9fc5e8]"You don’t look at me for almost two days and [i]now[/i] you want to talk? You’re ridiculous!”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]It was fair to say that Reed Richards’ attempt to console his fiance hadn’t quite gone as he had hoped. Sue had spent the past five minutes shouting at him. He had started to suspect that letting Johnny go after his sister might have been the right idea after all. But it was too late for that – whether Reed liked it or not they were now having the conversation that he had tried to so desperately to avoid ever since they had disembarked from the Pegasus.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]It didn’t help that they were having it through one of Sue’s force fields. She had erected it after Reed had tried to hug her – and now they stood on either side of it embroiled in as serious an argument as they had ever had. It couldn’t have come at a worse time.[/color]

[color=#3d85c6]“I’m sorry, I just ... I couldn’t get me head around what you agreed to with Namor,” [/color][color=#ffffff]Reed stammered as he tried to make sense of his feelings. He gritted his teeth and pushed his reservations to the back of his mind. [/color][color=#3d85c6]“Look, that’s not what matters right now, Sue.”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Sue’s nostrils flared at that. [/color][color=#9fc5e8]“You might be the smartest man on Earth, but you don’t get to tell me what matters to me, Reed Richards.”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]The Atlantean had come between them before on their own world – but never like this. Perhaps with everything that had happened Reed had been too focused on what the four of them had lost rather than what they still had. Either way, regardless of Sue’s protestations he refused to let Namor’s shadow, be it in this world or their own, blot out the more pressing issue at hand.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Franklin Storm.[/color]

[color=#3d85c6]“I know how much your father meant to you,” [/color][color=#ffffff]Reed said softly as he placed his hand against the force field.[/color][color=#3d85c6] “I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to lose him all over again.”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Sue crossed her arms over her chest and let out a laboured breath.[/color]

[color=#9fc5e8]“It wasn’t my father that I was mourning for, Reed, it was myself. Do you know how many times I’ve asked myself what my life might have been like if my parents hadn’t been killed in that car crash? What kind of woman I might have turned out to be?”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Even in the dingy hallway Reed could make out the tears that were forming in Sue’s bright blue eyes.[/color]

[color=#9fc5e8]“This Sue had that,”[/color][color=#ffffff] Sue said as she approached the forcefield slowly. [/color][color=#9fc5e8]“She had two parents, Reed, and [i]she[/i] still found her way to you. Our paths still crossed despite all of the thousands of differences that one change must have created. If our love can overcome all that – if it can overcome time and space – why do you [i]still[/i] not trust me?”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]The words were like a dagger in Reed’s heart.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]He shook his head in shock.[/color][color=#3d85c6] “What are you talking about? I trust you with my life, Sue.”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]His fiance’s sadness was etched into her face.[/color]

[color=#9fc5e8]“No, no, you don’t. You might say that – you might even think that – but I saw the way you looked at me after I shook Namor’s hand. You genuinely thought that I would throw away everything we have together … and for what?”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Only then did it occur to Reed that he might have made a grave misjudgement.[/color]

[color=#3d85c6]“I don’t understand.”[/color]

[color=#9fc5e8]“Of course you don’t,”[/color][color=#ffffff] Sue scoffed. [/color][color=#9fc5e8]“How could you understanding the reasoning of someone whose intellect is [i]so[/i] inferior to yours?”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Reed’s hand slipped from the force field. It hurt him that Sue would ever think that he thought that she was somehow beneath him. A thousand rebuttals sped through his mind but he stopped himself before speaking and thought with his heart, as opposed to his mind, for once about how hurt Sue must have felt if she believed that to be true. A deep sense of shame swept over him. One he did not begin to know how to make right.[/color]

[color=#3d85c6]“You know I don’t think t-”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]The sound of Guy Gardner clearing his throat from behind Reed brought an abrupt end to their conversation. He smiled at them apologetically and then thrust his thumb in the direction of the living room.[/color]

[color=#b6d7a8]“Sorry to interrupt but I think there’s something the two of you are probably going to want to see.”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Reed gave Sue a remorseful look and Sue met it with one that made clear their conversation was far from over with. She lowered her force field and followed after Guy and Reed. In the living room Ben and Johnny were on their feet facing someone that Reed couldn’t quite make out.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]As they grew closer the features became more and more familiar to him.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]It was Reed Richards. At least, it was this world’s version of him. An interactive holographic projection, as like the ones they had seen in Maria Hill’s office, though this one seemed more complex. It seemed to sense Reed’s approach and turned to face him.[/color]

[i][color=#3d85c6]“Greetings, my name is Reed Richards. If you’re watching this, I am dead. And you, Reed, have finally mastered inter-dimensional travel, as I always suspected that we might one day. Congratulations. I regret that I cannot be there to congratulate you in person but it would seem that the universe had other plans for me.”[/color][/i]

[color=#f6b26b]“Two Stretches,”[/color][color=#ffffff] Ben muttered under his breath. [/color][color=#f6b26b]“As if one wasn’t bad enough already.”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Sue shot the Thing a disapproving look. [/color][color=#9fc5e8]“Quiet, Ben.”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]The hologram Reed was slighter than him, his cheeks were gaunt where Reed’s were full and plump, but his body language, even the tiny facial movements he made, were so reminiscent of the way that he moved that he found it disorentating.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]There was only one difference.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]There was a warmth in the other Reeds eyes. Was that what he had looked like once?[/color]

[i][color=#3d85c6]“Perhaps you come from a world not too dissimilar from my own – riven with conflict over internecine religious differences and squabbling over scarce resources. Perhaps you come from somewhere else – somewhere more enlightened – where the problems we face seem quaint and anachronistic. But if you made it this far then you have exploration in your blood too.”[/color][/i]

[color=#ffffff]The hologram turned away from Reed and started to pace around the living room. It smiled in Sue and Johnny’s direction, as if it could sense that they were there, and ran one of its ‘hands’ along a table for dust. It was remarkable.[/color]

[i][color=#3d85c6]“This world needs us, Reed. It’s dying. Slowly but surely, mankind’s endless consumption is going to be its death if we don’t do something about it while we still can. And we are the only ones that can. This isn’t your world, Reed, and you certainly don’t owe it anything – but if you’re even half the man I suspect, you won’t let that stop you.”[/color][/i]

[color=#ffffff]The hologram flickered for a moment. The sound of a voice in the distance calling to the other Reed played. It was his Sue’s voice calling to him. The hologram looked over his shoulder at the Sue Storm stood before him, whose hard blue eyes softened slightly under the weight of the hologram’s gaze, and then turned to face Reed a final time.[/color]

[i][color=#3d85c6]“The people of this world held me up as its saviour since I was twelve years old, Reed, but clearly I failed them. It falls to you to succeed where I did not. Show them that there is always hope, Reed. Teach them.”[/color][/i]

[color=#ffffff]With that the hologram lifted its hand into the air towards Reed. Reed reached out and met it with his own. The second they made contact the hologram disappeared abruptly and left the Fantastic Four and Guy Gardner stood alone in the living room in shock.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]For the first time since they had fled their own world, Reed Richards considered the possibility of not returning.[/color]