World Enough And Time (Closed)

[Charlotte Smith]

Charlotte had decided that she was going to try her little experiment that she wanted to do, it was something that both thrilled her and scared her at the same time, the idea to change herself in her own time line to become somebody else, to be completely different yet still the same.

Biting her lip she looked in the mirror, she watched herself as she aged slowly in front of her very eyes, year by year, minute by minute.

12, 13, 14, 15.

Charlotte stopped, she knew what was going to happen, she remembered it herself, she knew the effect that it would have on her and yet, she also knew that she needed to know, she needed to know what she was about to find out.

Biting her lip Charlotte cried softly to herself, yet she went on.

16, 17, 18, 19.

She wanted Cobie, she wanted him beside her but she couldn't have him she couldn't have him see her like this, or to have him know what it was she was about to find out, it would kill him inside and she didn't want the man that she loved to be hurt so much about something that he knew nothing about.

With that, Charlotte let herself go, into the crushing blackness of her own mind while she aged herself again.

20, 21, 22, 23, 24.

With a gasp Charlotte stopped, and one look in the mirror had her crying even harder, age and pain had tarnished her face, she was weary and her eyes were lined with a lack of sleep and the remeniscents of the hurt that she both felt inside and was displayed within her pink eyes.

Pink? Why not red?

Suddenly a throb ripped through her chest and Charlotte fell to the floor, clutching her chest, clutching the mirror in sheer confusion. Charlotte blinked, her younger self needed to know this, she must do it.

Closing her eyes Charlotte sobbed quietly, her lips shaking as she tried to suppress it but as she aged, one last time.

25 and one day.

Charlotte opened her eyes, slowly, and looked at herself in the mirror, her heart throbbed harder in her chest and each beat hurt horribly, it hurt like nothing she had ever felt before and she screamed in fright and in pain.

Her eyes, her beautiful red eyes, were not pink, were not red, but were grey...were grey and rapidly fading to White.

With one last effort Charlotte closed her eyes and she suddenly felt the pain leave her, once more, her eleven year old self curled up on the floor of her bedroom, cowering at the foot of the mirror and wondering what had just happened.

Then she understood.

25 and one day.

She could not age herself any further than that, she couldn't make herself what she would look like as an old woman, or in her mid thirties, 25 and one day. Biting her lip Charlotte felt the hot tears roll down her cheeks, she couldn't tell anybody, no matter how much she wanted to, and she certainly couldn't tell Cobalt.

Curling up into a ball Charlotte sobbed hard onto her knees, and the clock began counting down her last moments.

14 years 20 days is all that's left.