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Donald was seven when he had his first flashes. Odd memories of diving into a frozen lake and grasping for the hand of a drowning young boy… watching a blonde woman with eyes of steel fight her way out of captivity… stabbing pain in his chest from a bullet… all suddenly found a home in his mind. The memories were strange- he knew they were his by instinct, but they were all pale somehow- in a world driven by empathy, the utter lack of emotion, the cool, hard reason, the pain stood out to him. It was a stark difference- the vibrant love and compassion of his daily life now had a harsh line drawn through it. Thinking about the memories made him cold and scared.
So he told his parents. They, too, were confused. Then they were worried. They tried to hide it, but Donald had always been attuned to emotions, even more so than the rest of the people around him. He knew. He could hear them, feel them that night whispering questions about what they were going to do- occasional children born without empathy were seen as dangerous, despite the First’s laws, and they didn’t want Donald to suffer- but what if the cold that had appeared in his mind spread?
It took a few days of processing and fear, but in the end, he came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t- it was like the memories and the chill they had brought with them had cordoned themselves off. They had made space in his mind- he knew there were more to come- but they were separate, quiet, after they first appeared. Almost like a memorial.
The home med system evaluated him and said his brain function was normal for him- which meant his empathy was still there- so his parents released him back to school. His classmates inquired as to his absence upon his return- illness was rare and parents were diligent, so missing school was quite unusual. He told them it was private- and that was serious. Very few things were private, and privacy was to be respected. They didn’t hound him after that, but it still set him apart. Not as much as publicizing the strange memories would have, but enough to notice a difference.
Over the next decade of his life, more and more returned to him. He remembered that once, in another time, everyone had been that cold. And that had been dangerous. He also found a warmer space in his mind-memorial- shared time with a slightly manic scientist that he now knew to be from the twenty-first century, friendship with the blonde woman and the drowning boy all grown up, an old movie he had taken the name Donald from in this other life (odd that it persisted). Something had changed for this specter of him, but he still couldn’t remember why. The memories were still cordoned off, but they were running out of room. He figured there wasn’t much more to come- there was just one large thing still missing.
He was twenty-four- and still missing that piece- when he was called before the First.
The scientists who had sped up human evolution in the twenty-second century had taken inspiration from him, but not all things were the same. Unlike the rest of humanity, the First would never grow old physically- he stood head and shoulders below Donald, with the rounded cheeks and slim proportions of a child. Humanity had decided death was a necessity- history, religion, and philosophy had declared a reason for it, and so the rest would age and depart when the time came, but the First was a relic of a separate timeline. He had lived for almost five centuries, and Donald did not know when his life would end. Perhaps he would even live until the second coming.
Donald’s musings ended when the First slipped his small hand into Donald’s own, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by a bright, shining love- the wordless, innocent love of a child for a parent.
It confused him briefly, but then the final memories slipped into place. Even when his memory-self was caught in the cold, emotionless fugue of the Observer tech, he had still done his best to love his son, protect him- perhaps in a more logic-driven manner than had Walter Bishop attempted to save Peter, but arising from the same deep need to protect his child. And his son was still alive, his son remembered, his son loved him.
And, by some mercy of God, he could now truly love his son, too.
“Michael,” he breathed, and then the ancient boy’s arms were around his neck.
The cordon dividing his old and new memories dissolved, but he didn’t fear it. The memories from the alternate timelines were a grace he did not deserve- a reminder that their present could have been much darker that it was, barring the miracle of the Bishop-Dunhams and the boy before him- and he was determined to use them to strive for a better future.