Accidentally Altering time

Leon’s father was once a great inventor, but over a decade ago he went missing. With no explanation at all from him or even the lab where he worked. Even stranger than his disappearance, the lab where he worked was shut down and closed off from the public.

Leon was only ten when his father vanished, so he had to grow up without his father, which was hard for him and his mother, but they made due. Not once in the decade he’s been missing has Leon given up trying to find him, or his body should he be dead.

His mother, however, had moved on, and because of that, she wanted Leon’s father's stuff removed from the basement. So he came over, packed it all up, and brought it to his house to sort through.

As he went through it he found some notebooks filled with designs and equations for all things a time machine. Leon laughed, his father was ambitious, but there was no way he actually built a time machine.

Leon looked in the box where he found the notebooks and found a VHS with his name on it. He pulled it out and ran it to his old TV and popped it in. He hit play and his father appeared on the screen.

There was a heartfelt greeting from his father, one that made Leon cry. Hearing and seeing his father again after so long hurt a lot, but it felt good. Leon had been slowly forgetting what he was like, and this tape was something he could cherish.

After the greeting, his father started talking about the time machine he was working on and then showed it in the video. He told Leon that if he vanished it was because someone got to him, and not because he abandoned him.

He told Leon that if that did happen he needed to get to his lab and use the time machine to travel back to the day he disappeared and warn him. He also told Leon to make sure to wear the suit he had in one of the boxes.

Leon’s father said that traveling back in time would alter his current timeline, and told him to avoid having his memories overwritten by a new timeline he had to wear a special suit he designed and hid among his stuff.

Leon paused the tape and looked for the suit, he found what appeared to be a sci-fi-looking tracksuit. Leon was curious about it and changed into it. At first, it was too big, but as soon as it was all the way on it shrank to its exact size and started to glow.

Leon was amazed, his father actually made the suit. Leon then looked at the TV, did he really also make a time machine? Was he killed because someone powerful didn’t want him to use it? Leon needed to know.

He finished watching the tape, in it, his father told him about a second-time machine hidden in the basement of his lab, one that could only be accessed by someone sharing his DNA. He finished the video by telling Leon to get it and save him, then saying he loved him.

Leon grabbed the most recent notebook her father filled out about the time machine and drove to his old lab in the middle of the night. He stuffed the notebook into his suit and started watching the building. After a bit of time. Leon found there were only a few guards.

They’d be easy to sneak around thanks to his father's detailed instructions. Leon made his way inside and found the hidden entrance his father mentioned. Leon pressed his hand against it and it started to scan it.

It dinged and flashed green, and then the wall opened up next to it. Leon made his way in and down a long flight of stairs. There he found the second time machine his father had mentioned, and although it was dusty it looked like it still worked.

Leon walked over to the main console and turned it on. It took a few minutes to load everything up, but once it was on it simply asked for a date on which the user wanted to travel to. Leon was typing in the date his father went missing when he heard someone start yelling.

Leon turned in a panic, causing the year on the sliding to go beyond the year he wanted without him noticing. Leon realized he left the door open and one of the guards must have seen it and called for backup.

Leon had to be quick. He turned back around and hit confirm on the date without actually making sure it was right. He then set the machine to activate in ten seconds. He then ran into the box of the time machine and waited.

As the time hit zero Leon heard the time machine hum and start to glow, he also saw one of the guards entering the room yelling at him, but it was too late, Leon was on his way to the past to save his father.

The lights blinded Leon for a moment, but when they went away it was clear to Leon that he was in the past, but that was only because he was standing in the empty lot where the lab he was just would be built one day.

Of course that meant there was a clear problem, the lab his father worked in was built in 2001 which was when his father was hired and started working there. So if it wasn't built yet, Leon ended up in the year 2000 or before.

That made it risky for him to be here, as he was born in 2004, and this whole thing could erase his existence. Leon closed his eyes and thought about it, that was a risk he was willing to take in order to save his father.

Leon was glad his father always talked about his first apartment with Leon’s mother. So he walked across the city until he got there and then knocked on the apartment door. Leon’s father was home and opened the door.

Leon’s heart started to flutter seeing him. Even though he was much younger and looked just like him, it was still his dad, and he was alive. Leon had to resist hugging him and freaking him out.

Leon couldn't bring himself to say anything, so his father was just left to sit there and look at his strange clothes. After a minute of silence, Leon’s father's eyes got wide and he asked Leon if he was from the future.

Leon couldn't believe it without saying a word, his father figured that out. Leon nodded and then pulled out his father's notebook and handed it to him. His father started to look it over and mildly freak out over how amazing it was.

He walked into his apartment leaving Leon at the door. Leon decided to let himself in and close the door. He waited for his father to read through his notes and then pay attention to him. Once he did, he started asking Leon why he was there.

Leon explained everything to him, about how he went missing and left him the tape to save him. That caused his father to go quiet and think for a minute. He took the notes and ripped them apart.

Leon was a little shocked and asked him why he did that. His father walked over and hugged Leon and told him he was sorry that his future self had to leave him, and then he promised not to end up in the same situation.

He said that he wouldn’t build a time machine at all, as he thought no matter how he built one, they’d end up getting rid of him. He also said he was going to move to a different city and find a different company to work for instead of waiting for the lab for his current employer to be built.

That seemed to be enough to change the future as Leon started to glow and start to vanish. Leon waved his father goodbye and told him he’d see him again someday, but in reality, he knew this was the end for him, his future was gone, and that meant he never existed.

Well, it wasn't the end for Leon, as seconds later Leon found herself standing in her bedroom in a house she’d never seen before. Leon was still somehow alive. Then she realized her father said the suit would protect her.

She looked down to see it, and sure enough, she was still wearing it, but there was also something very different about it. Well, it was more something different about her, not the suit. Somehow, changing the past, also turned Leon into a woman.

Leon heard her father call for her from downstairs, although he called her Leonie, not Leon. That didn’t matter though as she ran out of her room and downstairs to see him. Once she saw him standing there old but alive she was overjoyed and ran to hug him.

He hugged her back and noticed her strange outfit. Now he was a very smart man, and even after twenty years he recognized one of his works, even if it was from an alternate timeline. He hugged Leonie, welcomed her back, and thanked her for saving him.

Leonie looked up at him and smiled, she didn’t even question how he already knew, he was just that good. From then on, life was better than it was before. Leonie’s family was whole again, she had her father back. That’s all she’d ever wanted, and she was willing to give her life for it, but in the end, all she had to give up was being a man, which she was more than happy to do.