Never Enough: Look Inside...Contains Spoilers (UNEDITED VERSION)

The medical suite still reeked of antiseptic and ozone, a combination that made Neve’s stomach turn. She sat propped against starched white pillows, her fingers wrapped around the geode half her father had pressed into her palm moments ago before he’d vanished into thin air. The crystallized surface pulsed with a faint warmth, as if it were alive.

“Neve?” Diana’s voice wavered from somewhere to Neve’s left. “Are you all right?”

Neve couldn’t answer. Her throat had closed around the words she wanted to say. Instead, she clutched the geode to her chest and stared at the small circle of scorched carpet where her father had stood just seconds ago. Her nose wrinkled against the acrid smell of burned synthetic fibers mingled with the metallic tang of an electrical fire that burdened her senses.

“Well, that was a skoosh over dramatic,” Perry announced from his perch near the window. The African grey parrot ruffled his scarlet tail feathers. “One thing is certain, your father knows how to make a grand departure.”

“Perry, not now.” Diana moved closer to the bed, her hand hovering over Neve’s shoulder as if uncertain whether her touch would be welcome.

Neve finally tore her gaze from the floor and looked down at the crystal in her palm. In the sterile lighting, the geode half gleamed with an inner luminescence she’d never noticed in her own half. The surface was smoother, more polished, as if countless hands had worn away its rough edges over years of use. Delicate inscriptions spiraled across the curved exterior, symbols that reminded her of mathematical equations rendered in an alphabet she couldn’t quite decipher.

“This isn’t mine,” she said, her voice hoarse.

Diana leaned closer. “What do you mean?”

“My half.” Neve’s fingers trembled as she turned the crystal, watching ambient light dance in its amethyst depths. “He took mine, and left me his.”

Perry hopped along his perch, cocking his head to study the geode from a different angle. “So Ellis pulled the old switcheroo? Classic misdirection. He must have learned that from me.”

“Highly doubtful,” Neve croaked absently, her throat hoarse, still examining the crystal. “You’ve only known him for three weeks.”

“Details, details.” Perry said as he flapped a dismissive wing. “The point still stands. Who knew your nerdy father could turn into a veritable Houdini under the right conditions?”

The door to the medical suite opened, admitting a nurse who handed off a report to Diana. Her expression was professionally neutral, but Neve caught the tightness around her lips, the way her mouth pressed into a thin line. It contained bad news.

Diana approached the bed, papers in hand. “Your latest test results are here.”

“I already know what they’ll say.” Neve set the geode on the bedside table carefully, her eyes rolling to a fixed point while she recited the facts. “My cellular degradation has accelerated. The time jumps have aged me approximately thirty-five years beyond my chronological age. My telomeres are further shortened, my mitochondrial function is even more compromised, and my bone density is consistent with someone approaching eighty.”

Diana swallowed hard. “That’s remarkably accurate.”

“I’ve read the research.” Neve gestured at the stack of medical journals on the rolling tray table. “Dad’s notes were quite specific about the physiological effects of temporal displacement.”

“Then you understand the severity of your condition.” Diana pulled up a chair, sitting so she could meet Neve’s gaze directly. “Your body has sustained significant trauma. Your next jump could be fatal.”

“Could be,” Neve repeated. “Not will be.”

“Neve…”

“I didn’t ask for my prognosis to determine whether I should attempt another jump. I asked because I need to understand the severity of my condition and to plan accordingly.”

Perry made a small chirp of distress.

Diana studied Neve for a long moment. “You’re still planning to follow him.”

“Yes.”

“Even knowing it might kill you?”

“Yes.” Neve reached for the geode again, unable to resist its pull. The crystal warmed in her palm, and for a fraction of a second, she could have sworn she felt her father’s presence near. “He said to meet him in 1992. That means he believes I can make it there. I am trapped in the physical body of an 80 year-old woman that is deteriorating every day, as far as I can tell there isn’t much more left to lose.”

Diana stood, her practiced medical detachment slipping to reveal genuine concern. “If you insist on pursuing this course of action, you’ll need to build up your strength before the leap. Your muscle mass has deteriorated significantly. You’ll need physical therapy, proper nutrition, rest—“

“How long until the next Mercury retrograde?” Neve interrupted.

Diana’s pause lengthened out, searching for an appropriate argument that could sway Neve. Finding none, she answered, “Nine weeks, give or take a day depending on the lunar alignment.”

“Then I have time to prepare.” Neve pushed herself more upright in the bed, ignoring the protest of joints that felt decades older than they should. “I’ll need a physical therapist familiar with geriatric rehabilitation protocols.”

“Neve—“ Diana began.

“Mom.” The word still felt strange on Neve’s tongue, even after everything they’d been through. She’d said it deliberately, hoping it would lend credence to her next words. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared too, but Dad needs me. He asked for my help and I will not let him down.”

Diana’s eyes filled with tears. “What if I lose you both?”

The question hung heavy in the air. Neve could find no answer that wouldn’t be a lie, so she remained quiet.

“Why don’t we take a beat, honey bee? You’ve been through so much.”

“Taking a beat will not make me change my mind.”

“We know.” Talulah said, as she turned her attention to the nightstand where Ellis’s journals sat. There was a new one added to the stack, Talulah handed it to her. “Ellis gave this to me three days ago, while you were lost in your last jump. Made me promise to give it to you...” She swallowed hard. “if anything happened to him.”

The leather was worn soft, and Neve recognized her father’s neat handwriting on the cover: Temporal Mechanics & Biological Adaptation - Field Notes for N.

“He knew you’d need answers,” Talulah continued, “Spent every moment you were gone writin’ in that thing, muttering about pathways and resonance frequencies.”

Neve opened the journal with trembling fingers. Her father’s familiar script filled the first page, but unlike his usual clinical notes, these words were personal, urgent.

Nomo—If you’re reading this, you’re holding my half of the geode now, and you’re probably confused and possibly angry at me again for leaving. There are some important things you need to know.

Diana leaned closer, reading over Neve’s shoulder. “His handwriting looks different. Shaky.”

“Keep reading,” Talulah urged.

The truth is, I’m not like you anymore. Decades of jumping has changed me at a cellular level. My body has become what I call a temporal conduit, permanently infused with chronometric energy that regenerates on its own.

Neve looked down at her own hands, aged and spotted from her jumps cursing them, when she felt the geode pulse with a soft inner light filling her with a sense of comfort.

Neve turned the page, finding detailed diagrams of the two geode halves. Her father had labeled one “virgin crystal—unlimited potential” and the other “pathway-locked—single destination.”

Your geode is like a blank canvas, capable of moving freely within the universe. But the half I left you is different. It’s made the journey to March 15, 1992, 47 times. Each trip has carved deeper channels through space. It is less like a key and more like a railway track taking the holder to the same destination.

“Forty-seven times,” Neve repeated, astounded. “He’s been going back to the same day for over two decades?”

Perry hopped closer on his perch. “That’s either dedication or insanity.” He crowed, his chirp adding considerably more snark when he added, “Knowing your family, it’s probably a little of both.”

The next section made Neve’s heart race:

This is why your jumps have been so chaotic, Nomo. Your untrained geode is like driving without GPS through unmarked roads in the dark. You’ve been brave but reckless, and it’s killing you. My geode eliminates that risk. It knows EXACTLY where to go and when to drop you off. When Mercury retrograde comes, you won’t have to navigate, just hold on and let it carry you to me.

The pathways are worn deep. I’ve traveled them many times, trying to fix what I broke, but each time has been futile. I now know I can’t do this alone. I need you.

I’ll be waiting for you in 1992.

Come find me.

Neve read the notes three times before the words fully locked in.

“Look at this.” Neve held up the geode, angling it so the light caught in its depths. Now that she knew what to look for, she could see the difference clearly. Her father’s half glowed with an internal luminescence, a soft purple-blue radiance that pulsed in steady rhythm. “This isn’t just a geode. It’s a map. A pathway worn deep by repeated use.”

She thought back to her own jumps, the chaotic, unpredictable nature of them. Landing in 1984 instead of 1992. The disorientation, the sense of being thrown through time rather than guided through it. Her geode had been like a student driver, veering and swerving all over the place without clear direction.

But Ellis’s half... Ellis’s half was different. It had traveled the same route so many times that it had carved a channel through time. Like a river deepening its bed after every rainfall, each journey had strengthened the connection, made the pathway more stable, more accessible.

“He can jump without Mercury retrograde?” Neve asked, awe flooding through her. “It’s like he’s accumulated so much temporal energy from repeated use that the celestial alignment doesn’t matter anymore.”

Perry whistled. “Frequent flyer miles for time travel? Now I’ve seen everything.”

She looked down at the note again, at the specific date and time. March 17th, 1992. 3:47 PM. The moment everything changed.

“What happened in March of 1992?” Talulah asked Neve.

“I don’t know. Whatever it was it spooked him enough to fake his own death a few months later, and disappear.”

Neve turned back to the geode, examining the inscriptions more closely. They weren’t random decorative elements, she realized now. They were calculations. Equations that described the curvature of spacetime, the relationship between velocity and temporal displacement, the mathematical formulas needed to navigate a different dimension.

Her father had turned his half of the geode into a working temporal compass, calibrated to one specific point in history.

“Nine weeks,” she said softly. “I have nine weeks to make myself strong enough for one more jump.”

“And then what?” Diana asked.

“Then we figure out how to fix the past so we have a chance at a future.”

The geode pulsed again, stronger this time, and Neve felt an answering resonance in her chest. Despite her aged body, despite the pain that had become her constant companion, despite every rational reason to abandon this impossible quest, she felt something she hadn’t experienced in years.

Hope.

She closed her eyes and whispered the words her father had left her: “March 17th, 1992. 3:47 PM.”

The geode warmed in response, as if sealing a promise.

Perry muttered something about dramatic women and their daddy issues, but Neve barely heard him. She was already planning, already calculating the steps between here and there, between now and then.

Nine weeks until Mercury retrograde.

Nine weeks to prepare for the most important jump of her life.

Nine weeks until she finally learned what her father had been trying to tell her all along.

The answer was waiting in 1992.

And this time, she had a map to find it.