Alturas. The town where Levi lived with Irene and Peter two months ago; a lifetime ago. The place he’d watched destroyed.

Levi hadn't been back to their old home since he'd returned to the past. They'd met up at Gayle's place, and been running all over creation since then.

When he saw the house, standing whole and not burned, his heart clenched with an indescribable primal dread. He stood for a long moment, fighting off the panic, trying to remember how to breathe.

Their house was fine. He wasn't watching it burn. The neighborhood wasn’t being torn apart by fiery demons.

His heart and stomach, body and emotions, all refused to believe it. Everything in him screamed that it wasn't safe.

Choking grief surged in his throat, deep premonition insisting that any second now he was about to watch everyone he loved destroyed. Standing helpless.

He needed to leave. Get them away before it was too late.

But he'd come here for a reason.

It was fine.

It was safe. There was no danger.

The invasion wasn’t until the end of October. It was still August. They had time.

“Do you want me to?” Irene asked softly, resting a hand on his arm.

“No. Wait here. I need to do this.”

He stiffly forced himself forward, walking mechanically up to the door that he'd once run up every night on returning from work.

This was his home, once upon a time.

Levi opened the door. The smell hit him first, a musty dust layer insufficient to hide the scent of their laundry soap, the particular way their plaster heated up in summer, the lingering aroma of Irene's pineapple candles.

He'd forgotten.

He hadn't even realized he'd forgotten until he stood there, tears welling up that he couldn't begin to fight off.

He'd been happy once, hadn't he? Or at least content, satisfied. He'd wake every morning to the sounds of Irene's mumbling, quietly prepare for work. She'd wake up before he left, in time to tell him about what she'd packed for his lunch, give him a goodbye kiss, and accept his wishes for good luck with their wild child of a son.

Work was wearying and occasionally frustrating, but he didn't hate it. The job provided for his family, kept him busy, let him travel and his family pay for whatever reasonable luxuries were available in their simple, chaotic life.

Every evening coming home to his son's excited shouts and running footsteps—or childishly exaggerated crossed arms and grumpy silence, if something was bothering him. Dinner, sometimes hot, often late, Irene's harried apologies...

She always expected so much more of herself than was reasonable. Looking back, sometimes Levi had fallen into expecting it too.

He shook himself into focus. Sentiment screamed at him to claim each and every item, but that wasn't why he was here.

He walked to the phone, an old button dial type they hadn't replaced since they moved in, and more importantly the tiny notebook beside it.

Irene's contact book. Old-fashioned, analog, pen and paper list of people they knew, their phone numbers, emails, and addresses.

It was time to get serious about bringing people together.

But he couldn’t stop himself from lingering. He ran a hand across the counter, feeling the familiar texture of granite. Sticky from something spilled and inexpertly cleaned up.

A vision of Peter scrubbing at a spot of syrup on the floor with a dry towel, he couldn’t have been more than seven. Irene taking the towel and adding some soap and water for him before handing it back. His grin of pride at the success, looking up to them eagerly.

Levi blinked back sudden tears. He tucked the contact book into his storage pouch and opened the door to the kitchen stairs. Nostalgia hit him again, harder this time, as the door squeaked just that little bit, barely more than a scrape, but sharp enough to reach anywhere in the house. Yet another detail he’d never have thought about but wove itself through so many memories.

He cleared the corner in a single hop, then took the steps two at a time.

The upstairs hallway was both like and unlike that of his memories. Same pictures on the walls, different furniture layout, same wallpaper, newer carpet.

He trailed a hand across the handle to his and Irene’s room, but there was nothing there he needed. Then he turned back and went inside anyway.

Irene hadn’t said anything, and he knew she never would, but it couldn’t be easy to leave everything behind like she had. He carefully slid her jewelry box into his storage bag, then added a few of her favourite outfits. Anything that could handle being folded. The fancier dresses wouldn’t fare well in the storage space, so he left those where they hung.

As an afterthought, he threw in the rest of his own work clothing. It wouldn’t be enough to stop a monster attack, but he had the space and there was no reason not to bring them. They wouldn’t be coming back here for a long time.

He glanced briefly at Irene’s laptop, still plugged in on her bedside table. It wouldn’t do them any good now.

How many nights had he fallen asleep to the sound of her nails softly tapping away at that keyboard, writing email after email? Her network would be an invaluable resource, assuming they could get back in contact.

He couldn't see through the sudden blur of tears. He stumbled and sat down hard on the bed.

He'd had a life. He'd lived here. They had a life together. All of them. It hadn’t been perfect, but it had been theirs, and it had been good.

That was what had been destroyed, what he could never reclaim. The invasion had altered their future forever. Changed him, who he was.

Changed his family.

He lost them to death in the first timeline. He almost lost them again to negligence. Even now, the dread of what might have happened threatened to suffocate him.

He wouldn't lose them again.

Levi pushed himself up, hands fisted. He couldn't forgive himself for failing to save them the first time, and he wouldn't forgive the demons for stealing their future.

They weren't a happy, normal family any more. That path no longer existed. They would never be normal again. But they could still be a family. They could still avoid the dead-end of complacency and destruction.

He touched the notebook in his pocket. Irene’s network would be an invaluable resource, assuming they could get back in contact. Levi wanted to do more than protect just those closest to him. There were countless other lives just as valuable, just as vulnerable, who he could at least try to nudge toward salvation.

He couldn’t save everyone, and he couldn’t equip everyone, but he would make as much of an impact as he could in the time they had remaining.

Emerging back into the hall, wiping his face clear of the evidence of his emotional lapse, Levi caught sight of a flickering gremlin tail slipping around the corner.

“Skarm? Tu? You up to something out here?”

Tu emerged from Peter’s room, holding a storage bag over his shoulder and looking mock-innocent.

“If you’re on an actual mission, then carry on, but if you think you’re going to loot the place and get away with it, you’ll have to reconsider.”

Tu put a hand to his tiny chest with an air of affront, then dove back into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.

Levi shook his head at his minion’s antics, but left him to it. He couldn’t think of many instances where any of his tamed monsters had acted truly contrary to his desires, apart from occasionally making questionable tactical decisions.

This time, he allowed his sentimental side to the fore. He gathered up the family photo albums, took down the pictures from the walls, and stored them all safely away in his storage bag. By the time he finished, Tu came scampering out, grinning.

Levi popped into Peter’s room long enough to grab a few extra changes of clothing for him too, something he doubted the gremlin had any care for. He didn’t remember exactly what had been in the room before, since he hadn’t actually seen the place in this timeline before now, but it looked like the display shelves had been cleared off.

“Good enough. Let’s go collect the others. Then we’ve got a hidden boss who’s been waiting for a rematch.”