Now That It's Raining More Than Ever, Know That We'll Still Have Each Other

Turner barely had any time to reorient himself before his feet hit solid ground, causing him to stumble forward and hit his hand on a doorknob. He didn't even register where he was before he heard a voice from behind him.

"Turner?"

He turned around to see Abby standing behind him, steadying herself by bracing her hand on an empty wall directly across from the door to the penthouse suite. Her brown, wavy hair was all a mess from inter-dimensional transport, he assumed.

"That...that was new," Abby managed.

Turner didn't answer immediately. Instead, he opened the door to the penthouse suite immediately, taking in the surroundings again.

"What are you doing?" she said.

As Turner was looking around, footsteps emerged from the kitchen, walking directly into the foyer of the penthouse.

"There you are," Becca said as she approached Turner and Abby. "I was wondering when you were gonna get here."

Becca was wearing a loose shirt and dolphin shorts, her orange curls slightly messy like she hadn't been outside all day...or had been in the humid air for too long. Her expression shifted from confusion to relief when she saw Turner. As Turner looked back at her, he saw the alternate Becca for a second. The tired eyes, loneliness, guarded feelings, the longing for some form of companionship.

All of that went out the window when she smiled back at him.

"Where'd you guys end up disappearing to?" she said, starting to be a bit puzzled at why neither of them had spoken since coming inside the penthouse.

Turner opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"Turner?" Becca's smile faded.

Abby glanced between the two of them. "He's had a bit of a hard day."

"Apparently," Becca said, briefly acknowledging her sister before turning back to him. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Turner said after swallowing, much quieter and breathier than he intended.

"You don't look...or sound okay," Becca frowned, stepping forward so that they were about an arm's reach apart. "Are you positive?"

He nodded, then swiftly stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

"Uh..." Becca stiffened in surprise, her cheeks flushing a little bit at the sudden intimacy, but then wrapping her arms around his neck.

As Turner closed his eyes, he could feel the weight of the other Becca against him. He could still hear her voice saying "She gets you".

Becca pulled back enough to look at him. "Are you gonna tell me what happened, or are you gonna stand here in the doorway hugging me? I mean, not that I mind the second option...but I'd like to know why you're...like this all of a sudden."

Turner reluctantly loosened his arms around her, but he didn't let go completely. For a second, he considered lying. He could say he missed her, that it was a rough day, which were both technically true. After what he'd just promised himself though...that wouldn't do.

"I think...we ended up going somewhere we weren't supposed to be, but that we really needed to," he managed. "Or at least...that I needed to."

Becca raised an eyebrow. "That explains everything."

"Becca..."

"I'm serious." She gave him a small smile. "You look like someone told you the world is ending. What...happened?"

He considered telling her everything. The alternate island, the ruined versions of everyone, how it had happened with the intervention by production, how easily it could all come crumbling down.

But he stopped himself. Not because he didn't trust her, but because he didn't know how to explain that he'd just spent the last several hours sitting beside another version of his girlfriend while she cried about losing him. And he didn't know how to explain how much it had terrified him.

"I don't think I can explain it all, at least...all at once," Turner said, looking deep into her eyes. "To be honest, I'm still trying to figure it out myself."

Becca studied him for a second, her expression shifting from suspicion to concern.

"Was it something about the show?" she asked, holding on to his arm.

“Yeah,” Turner admitted, after slight hesitation.

“Something bad?”

“Kinda? Not exactly for us, but...I don't know. It's complicated.”

Abby quietly slipped past the two of them, heading toward the kitchen.

“I'll, uh...give you guys a minute," she said. "I think we could use some food."

Becca glanced at her sister. “Thanks.”

Abby stopped a few steps away and looked back at Turner. There was something in his expression that made her pause.

“You sure you're okay?”

“I'll be fine," Turner assured as he nodded.

Becca waited until Abby was out of earshot before looking back at Turner.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “Now tell me what you need.”

Turner blinked. “What?”

“You heard me.” Becca tilted her head slightly. “You’re clearly trying to figure out how to solve a problem much bigger than yourself, like you always do. And I don't intend on letting you solve it alone.”

Turner let out a quiet breath through his nose. “That obvious?”

“To me? Yeah.”

She gave his arm a gentle squeeze before letting go.

“Sit down.”

Turner sat down on the couch, and Becca followed a moment later, turning sideways so she could face him. She tucked one leg underneath herself and watched him expectantly.

For several seconds, Turner said nothing.

He wasn't even sure where to begin.

Becca didn't interrupt.

That was probably the hardest part.

Normally, she'd fill the silence with a joke, a complaint, or some sarcastic comment about whatever ridiculous situation they'd found themselves in. But right now, she just waited.

Eventually, Turner leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I saw something today," he said.

Becca didn't move, didn't push. She just watched him, patient in a way that felt almost unbearable given what he was about to try and not-quite-say.

"What kind of something?" she finally asked, when it became clear he wasn't going to continue on his own.

Turner opened his mouth, then closed it again. He thought about the room with the pastel walls, just like it was in Virginia. The photo on the dresser, just like in Virginia. He looked over across the room they were in now and, despite being in a better timeline, it had none of the little details that made it feel like home. He thought about how the alternate Becca's voice had cracked after admitting something, like it had cost her to say it out loud.

"I don't really know how to describe it without it sounding worse than it is," he said carefully.

"Is it worse than it is?"

"I don't know yet," he admitted. "Maybe. Probably not."

"Turner."

"Yeah?"

"You decide something's too heavy for me to carry, so you try to carry it by yourself instead." She said it without malice, more like she was rattling off a memorized speech. "You've been doing it since I met you. You did it after your grandfather's surgery. You tried to do it after the confrontation you had with Paige in high school. You did it when Kathryn's boss wanted to transfer you to Texas and you didn't tell me for two weeks. You've even been doing it here, trying to make sure I'm the happy, domestic girlfriend while the rest of these girls and Kendra pour emotional weight onto you."

Turner winced. "That's not—"

"It's exactly that," Becca interrupted. "I can see it happening in real time, and you can't keep not sharing the burden with me."

He looked down at his hands, one of which was now covered by Becca's. She wasn't wrong, and there wasn't much point pretending otherwise. He thought about what would happen if he told her everything: the horrific challenge going wrong, the producers stripping his ability to care, the numerous broken people that he had come across during the day. He pictured her hearing that some version of him, somewhere, just... stopped. He thought about what would happen if he told her about the version of herself that he had met, someone physically identical but a polar opposite emotionally. And he pictured her not being able to un-hear it, the same way you can't un-hear a diagnosis, even something like a hypothetical future.

"Okay," he said slowly. "The version I'll give you is true. It's just not... all of it."

Becca considered that, then nodded once, prompting him to continue.

"Abby and I ended up somewhere," he started. "Another version of the island. Same layout, same people, essentially. But things had gone differently there. Badly."

"Badly how?"

"People weren't themselves anymore," he said. "Not in the same way that the transformations here have changed people. Worse than that. Like something had been let to run for way too long without anyone stopping it."

Becca squeezed his hand once, before crossing her arms and leaning over her knees. "Did you see me?"

He hesitated a half-second too long, and she caught it.

"You did see me," she confirmed.

"Yeah."

"And?"

Turner exhaled. This was the part he'd been trying to route around without lying, but there wasn't a way around this. "She wasn't doing well. It wasn't your fault, or her fault, or anyone but production's fault, really. It was just... what happens if I disappear into the show and stopped showing up for the people who actually mattered."

Becca went quiet. She continued looking at him, her hands clasped between her legs.

"I'm not going to let that happen," he added quickly. "That's the reason I'm saying any of this, and probably why I was sent there. I'm not going to let that happen to anybody, not Sara, not Kathryn, not Abby, not myself, and not you."

"Was she..." Becca stopped for a second. "Was I...she...whatever, was she okay?"

Turner thought about the tired eyes, the empty apartment décor recreated with too much care, the way she said she hated the version of him on that alternate island.

"She was getting through it," he said, which was the truest thing he could say without handing her the whole weight of it. "That's what she told me, anyway."

Becca studied him for a long moment; long enough that he had to fight the urge to look away.

"You're protecting me from something," she said finally.

"I—"

"Do you think that's fair to me?"

Turner opened his mouth, then shut it again, because the honest answer was a flat-out no. He didn't know how to say that without making it sound like a confession.

"I don't think it's about fair," he said instead. "I think it's about... not handing you something you can't put back down."

"That's not your call to make." Becca said, sitting up straighter now, some of the softness draining out of her voice. "This isn't handing me something I can't grapple with, it's telling me what I you think I want to hear. You're deciding that you know what I can and can't handle."

"That's not what I'm doing."

"Isn't it?"

Turner ran his hands down his face. "Becca, I watched a version of you today that hasn't smiled in weeks. Who flinched when I tried to touch her, because the last person who looked like me hadn't earned that in a long time. I'm not trying to protect you from a scary story, I'm trying to protect you from watching me relive it every time I look at you for the next month."

That landed harder than he meant it to. For a second, he thought she might get up and leave the room entirely to go talk with Abby.

"So instead," she said slowly, "you'd rather carry that by yourself. Alone. Like you always do."

"I didn't say that, I'm telling you right now."

"You're telling me a summary." She held up a hand before he could argue. "I'm not an idiot, Turner. I know you're giving me the version of something that's been sanded down. You just told me there's a version of me out there falling apart because a version of you stopped caring, and then in the same breath you said 'She's getting through it.' That isn't an answer. I know me, and if you suddenly started doing that, I certainly wouldn't be just 'getting through it'."

Turner didn't say anything, because there wasn't a good rebuttal to that.

"I get why you're doing it," Becca continued, quieter now. "You've spent your whole life doing this, deciding what's too much for the people around you and then just... absorbing it. But you know what that actually does? It doesn't protect me, or anybody. It just means I find out later, from someone else, in a worse way, that you've been carrying something enormous by yourself again. And then I get to feel insluted on top of everything else, because apparently I wasn't trusted enough to know."

"That's not what this is."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm scared," he admitted, "that if I tell you everything, you're going to start looking at every long day I have here and wondering if this is how it starts. I'm scared because I have to go on a date with every other girl on this island, every week, and any of them could be the time that you think this alternate timeline is becoming reality. And I don't think I could stand that. Watching you brace for something that I'm telling you, right now, I am not going to let happen."

"You don't get to protect me by deciding I'm fragile," Becca said. "Do you wanna know what happened the day after you had sex with Sara? She went down and told me about it, on the beach. I wasn't even eliminated, so it's not like I had that transformation that nixed my jealousy. There were about fifty things that I would've done in that moment if I was as fragile as you seem to think I am, but instead I had a conversation with her about it."

"That's not the same thing," he said, but there wasn't much fight behind it.

"It's exactly the same thing." Becca uncrossed her arms, resting her hands in her lap instead. "You decided, back then, that I couldn't handle knowing something before I even had the chance to prove you wrong. And I handled it. Sure, it may have been badly after a while with the whole elimination..."

"I remember."

"...but I handled it. Because it was mine to handle."

Turner looked at her, really looked at her, the version of her that still had that stubborn streak to it.

"Okay," he said quietly. "You're right."

Becca blinked, clearly having braced for more resistance. "...Okay?"

"You're right," he repeated. "I don't get to decide that for you. I just,,," he exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. "I keep picturing what it would do to you, hearing it all at once. Not because I think you're weak. Because I watched what happens to a version of you who has to live inside that fear every single day, and I can't stop thinking about it."

"Then let me carry a piece of it," Becca said. "That's the whole point. You're not supposed to be the only one holding it."

Turner nodded slowly. He thought about where to start, what version of the truth wouldn't collapse the second she started pulling at it. He decided, finally, that the version she deserved wasn't the sanded-down one.

"There was a challenge," he said. "A date-planning thing, with these wristbands that punished people for getting emotional. It got out of hand. Sara ended up on the ground, in pain, and I stepped in to try and stop it."

"That sounds like you."

"Production didn't like that." He kept his eyes on their hands, not on her face, because it was easier that way. "They said my—my attachment to people was interfering with the show. So they changed me. Right there. Made it so the longer the show goes on, the less I actually feel about any of you. Not gone all at once. Just... quieter, every day, until eventually there's nothing left to notice with."

Becca went very still.

"That's what happened to her," he continued, the words coming out easier now. "Not all at once. She said it felt like losing me an inch at a time, and by the time she realized how much was gone, there wasn't a moment she could point to and say that's when it started. That's the part I couldn't stop thinking about. It doesn't happen because someone snaps. It just... erodes."

He finally looked up at her, meeting her eyes.

"That's why I didn't want to say it plainly. Because now every time I have a long day here, every time some challenge or some date runs late, you're going to wonder if this is the day it started for her. And I don't know how to tell you it won't happen here without sounding like I'm just saying what you want to hear."

Becca was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice had lost its sharpness.

"I appreciate you telling me the real thing," she said. "Even though I can tell there's still more you're not saying."

"There's more," Turner admitted. "I don't think I can get through all of it tonight."

"That's fine." She reached over and laced her fingers through his again. "I'm not asking for all of it tonight. I'm asking you to stop deciding on your own what I get to know."

"I can do that."

"You'd better," she asserted. "I'm not going to fall apart like her. Not because I'm stronger, or because I don't love you as much, or whatever nonsense your brain is spinning up right now." She squeezed his hand once. "But because you just told me, out loud, what it looks like when this goes wrong. That means I get to watch for it. That means if it ever starts, I get to say something before it's an inch at a time for weeks."

Turner let that sit with him, his chest loosening for the first time since he'd stepped back through the door.

"Okay," he said.

"I'm not asking you to stop seeing the other girls," she clarified. "I was jealous when this whole thing started. You know that. I was really jealous."

"Yeah."

"And sometimes I still am," she smiled and shook her head. "But I don't want you to go through this show pretending the other girls don't exist just because you're scared of becoming that version of yourself. I want you to keep going on those dates. I want you to spend time with them. Hell, I even want you to enjoy yourself."

Becca squeezed his hand.

"The thing that scares me isn't that you care about them the same amount as me." She paused, before continuing. "It's that someday you might stop caring about anyone. Clear?"

"Crystal," he responded.

From the kitchen came the unmistakable sound of metal clattering against the floor, causing both Turner and Becca to look over, where Abby's head was poking from around the corner.

"Sorry!" Abby called.

"Your sister's going to destroy the kitchen," Turner said.

"Probably."

"Should we help?"

"Probably."

Neither of them moved.

After a few seconds, Becca smiled. "Five more minutes."

Turner smiled back. "Five more minutes."

He rested his head against hers again, hearing Abby start cursing at something inanimate and likely of her own doing.