TURN BACK THE TIME, BABE. BOOK 8. CHALLENGING THE DOORS OF TIME

FLEE FOR YOUR LIFE

ELIDETH'S POV

Wish and her throbbing post time travel headache joined me in the flight back to Munich. As I was stroking self-absorbed her silky redheaded hair spread over my lap, I was recalling every single step within my last hours.

I had my own suspicions a long time ago but given that my period since I joined Turn back the time had turned so terribly irregular, I played it down till I had to really care about it. As doctor Scott told me I was 4 weeks pregnant, I laughed and cried at the same time. This second pregnancy arrived the same way as the two former ones, completely out of the blue. The first one I was unaware till I had my miscarriage in the future, the second one took place in the middle of our wrost crisis and this one... Freddie and I were not an ordinary marriage either. Anyway, we never were.

There was no room for a new child in my mind right now but I should have taken care before having unprotected sex with him. Unsafe sex. Once in a while we had been careful but most of the time we didn't use any condom. And the last times we didn't.

So the next thing to do as soon as I returned home was dusting off my load of HIV rapid tests and test myself. I trusted blindly to test negative and therefore I also trusted Freddie could be still free of the virus.

This time around I was wrong. This time playing with fire took its toll. And now I was a seropositive pregnant. Something quite dangerous.

Being HIV positive was something that deep down, despite in 1977 I really thought I was infected, I thought never could happen to me. But it was rather a self defensive attitude because it was clear that having sex with Freddie wildly in the middle of Munich period, was highly risky. And there you go, the brainless Elideth finally was infected.

After the initial fright, I forced myself to think fast. I was infected and so Freddie too, but I was gonna avoid that my second baby could be born with our disease. I gotta go back to the present time to work this out. I knew I could take the 2021 antiretrovirals but spending my risky pregnancy in 1984 was a different kettle of fish. AIDS was still a total enigma. They hadn't developed yet any drug against it and just recently it was beginning to regard it as an epidemy and they had tracked the kind of virus. I was not going to take a risk and so something could fail. My future child was now my number one priority. I should spend my whole pregnancy in the future.

I talked to Fooling but I avoided to start explaining what happened. It was clear sooner or later I gotta do but what I needed the most is he could talk to Wish and tell her to return. The mission was not finished yet and if I had to vanish I needed Wish and Amandine to take care of everything. Wish taking care of Sally and Amandine taking care of Farrokh. And then I could leave peacefully.

But not before letting Freddie know about it.

Mr Bad Guy album hadn't been yet published in October. Things got a bit messy in the studio and it was gonna be issued sometime along 1985. Freddie found himself at Musicland working and I waited patiently for the end of the session.

- Can we talk?

By his face I knew instantly he was not in a very good mood so it was gonna be harder. We got into the cool down room by the punch ball machine.

- Is everything alright in the recording session?

- Yes, just fine.

- So, what's wrong with you?

- Why should there be something wrong?

- Oh, okay. Don't tell me anything if you like.

I hadn't even finished the sentence when I knew quite well he would pour his heart out to me. He usually did and it had been one of my greatest triumphs within the mission. To let this private musician could open his heart to me easily. It was such a sadly thought, taking into account my biggest failure now.

- I guess you are aware of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure are gathering some musicians together to record a Christmas song raising funds for Ethiopia's famine.

- Yes, seemingly they want to record it as soon as possible to issue it before Christmas.

- We have been ignored.

- Perhaps they're calling you any time soon... These kind of things are taking a lot of time.

- No, they won't do it. The Sun City stuff and the musician union's fine has taken its toll. Going there was a fucking mistake.

- Don't spin your head. There's no solution for that. We couldn't have imagined the consequences.

Freddie looked sulky and with a reason. It looked like since I want to break free video "mistake" the band was going through their lowest hours. The tour had been successful but there was no American leg for the first time in their history as a band and at long term it was harmful for them. The American market meant a large amount of money and seemed like they turned their backs to each other.

I wish I could have told him to play that down because in a matter of months they were going to be the brightest stars of that charity project. But I couldn't do that. I was really pissed having to go away from the mission just at this delicate point. Because the band was at a sort of crossroads and nobody was really sure what could happen. Freddie was focused on his solo project and everyone else with their own stuff. For someone unlike me unable to see the future, the situation didn't bode well. What's more, rumours had been increasingly spread talking about their split up and crisis.

- Maybe they haven't phoned us because we are such bloody racists or just they have forgotten about us. We are already some kinda dinosaurs.

- You are one of the best selling bands. Nobody can forget you.

- Then don't you think they call us racists or despicable for breaking the rules and performing in an apartheid place and finding ourselves in the United Nations black list?