Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

    Eva Sanchez rang the doorbell of the house that was definitely worth more than her entire school. Is this what mansions were like? And why would a person who lived in a mansion order a Pizza Hut pizza? Surely whoever lived there knew that there was better pizza around than that.

    Eva waited, tapping her foot on the stoop. This was taking a while. Eva just wanted to go home, this shift was a long one.

    A girl and presumably her friend opened the door. “One gluten free cheese?” Eva offered, holding the still-warm box out.

    “Who’s gluten free?” the girl in front asked, most likely to no one, but her friend answered anyway.

    “Me. And Chess. And Kate. And Riley! And Farrah and Kate have problems with sugar—”

    The first girl interrupted her by asking Eva if she knew her as she took the pizza box.

    Eva didn’t think so. She didn’t recognize the girl. She voiced that thought, but the girl didn’t look convinced.

    A look of realization dawned on her face. “West High! You’re their flyer!”

    Eva nodded. She got this a lot. “Yeah, that’s me. Do you guys go to our games?”

    The second girl said, with a big smile on her face, “We’ve lost to you a bunch of times!”

     There was only one team that managed to “lose a lot” to West High of all schools. “You’re Tigers?”

    The first girl glanced down at her shirt, which had TIGERS printed boldly in all capital letters on her shirt. Eva felt stupid now.

    She tried to cover it up. “You know honestly, we are rooting for you guys. Just to score any amount of points!” She did a horrible job. This was the most embarrassing pizza delivery she’d ever had to have lived through.

    “That’s very kind of you,” the first girl said, her tone saying the opposite. If that wasn’t evidence enough for her irritated state, her grip on the pizza box tightened, causing the cardboard to fold in slightly.

    “And that video, that wasn’t fair.” Eva thought to herself, why am I still talking? Please shut up. I am begging you to shut up . Why did she have to mention the video? She could have brought up literally anything other than that! “We all make a couple wrong moves.”

    “Sure,” the first girl said, unimpressed. This would be a normal person’s cue to stop, but unfortunately, Eva’s brain didn’t register her as a normal person in the moment.

    “We all fall out of our formations, sometimes.”

    The second girl had stopped smiling. She had stopped smiling a while ago. “Yeah.”

    “We all break a couple of bones—”

    “It was just a minor head injury, so everything’s fine.” The second girl cut in, her smile returning, but it was definitely forced. She would make a killing in customer service, honestly. “And we’re doing great.”

    Eva laughed nervously. Why had she talked for so long? Who let that happen? This was certainly a learning experience. She would never have another delivery like this again, ever. Hopefully. “Well! Uh, it was nice to officially meet you.”

    Both girls stared vacantly at her, apparent that they didn’t feel that way at all. “Yeah. Well, I’m sure we’ll see you again soon,” the first girl said plainly, but Eva could see the daggers she was being sent through her glare.

    Eva nodded politely in response as the two girls headed back inside. The door slammed loudly and Eva grimaced. She kind of really deserved that. She dashed back to her car to try and preserve any dignity she still had left. She didn’t think she had any.

    As she left, Eva’s skin crawled with the feeling that someone was talking about her, but she shook it off. She was probably just overwhelmed with humiliation. She had more deliveries to make, ones that would hopefully go smoothly and tip decently. A girl can dream.

    The rest of Eva’s night was uneventful. She drove for what felt like forever in pitch black from house to house, but that’s what happens when you get the night shift for Pizza Hut. She had around an hour left to work, and pulled into the Pizza Hut parking lot to grab her next batch of deliveries. After dropping off a few more pizzas, she pulled over onto the side of the road to check where she was heading to next. Her music started up, surprising Eva when it blasted over the speakers. Her playlist had ended a bit ago, and Eva hadn’t had the time to futz with it while she was still driving. She picked up her phone to see if she had accidentally hit a button while toying around with receipts.

    Glancing at the time on her phone, she paused. Did her phone break? It was definitely not 6pm. Last she had checked, it was around midnight. Whatever. She’d have to fix that when she clocked out. Eva sighed, hoping that today’s paycheck wouldn’t need to go towards phone repair. It was old enough, and she really wouldn’t mind replacing it, but it would likely cost less to get her current one sorted out than purchase a new one. 

    Pushing away those thoughts for later, Eva checked the address she was heading to next. 16, Harcourt Lane. Eva furrowed her brow, the address familiar to her. Maybe it was some place she had gone a couple days before for a different delivery.

    Opening the GPS on her phone and hoping that hadn’t bugged out as well, she punched the address in and turned her sights back on the road.

    Eva squawked very inelegantly when the sun blared in through the windshield. What was the sun doing up in the sky right now? Two seconds ago it had been difficult to see the road!

    “I think I’m stressed out,” Eva said to no one, accepting this as not normal but choosing to move along for the sake of her sanity. She followed her phone’s instructions to her next delivery. As the road became pretty familiar to her, Eva’s stomach did a twist.

    She pulled up to a gate that requested a passcode to get in. She knew this number. She had been here before. Eva checked the receipt that had a note on it, saying that it was to be delivered to a house in agated community. The passcode for the gate was five digits long. Eva knew the number. She had put it in there before. Eva didn’t like the feeling that was beginning to gnaw away inside of her.

    Eva blindly listened to the GPS’s last directions. She pulled onto the street of a massive house. Where she had been a couple of hours ago.

    Okay, this was… Weird. Right? This wasn’t a normal thing.

    Eva tried to justify this very odd situation. Maybe they had just ordered two pizzas and Eva had messed up on making sure there were both of them. Sure. She’d get an earful for that, but hopefully it wouldn’t make its way to her manager. Or maybe they just wanted another pizza and ordered one again. Whatever . The mansion residents could probably order all the pizza they could ever want whenever they wanted. Must be nice.

    Eva didn’t want to go back to said mansion ever in her lifetime, but she thought of ways to possibly salvage her sense of pride of what had just happened.

    “Guess you’ll see me again sooner than you thought, huh? No, that sounds dumb. We’re not doing that.” Eva clammed her mouth shut to cease talking to herself and walked up the pathway to the house.

    Eva, begrudgingly, in the name of money, rang the doorbell.

    It took a while for the door to be answered. Again. Eva wondered if they got lost in their giant mansion attempting to find the front door.

    The two girls from earlier answered the door again. Eva checked the receipt on the box to double check the order. “One gluten free cheese?” she asked, the end of the sentence lilting up in confusion. These girls must love cheese.

    “Who’s gluten free?” the girl who had asked that before asked again.

    “Me. And Chess. And Kate. And Riley! And Farrah and Kate have problems with sugar–”

    “Hey, do I know you?” the first girl really looked at Eva.

    Eva blinked slowly at the girl. They were both just pulling her leg, right? Although, the lack of commentary other than that on her sudden reappearance was confusing.

    “Um… I’m Eva?” Eva didn’t know what else to say. “You are…?”

    The first girl’s face flashed with recognition, and it looked like she was about to say something, but was interrupted by the girl with the wide smile. “I’m Annleigh!” She reached out to shake Eva’s hand.

    “Cairo,” the other girl said coolly, not shaking Eva’s hand. That was ok. Eva was still processing the situation to be aware of what was going on around her.

    “Alright. Uh, here’s your pizza,” Eva said, handing the box over. “Have a good night!”

    Cairo looked like she still wanted to say something, but Eva just booked it back to her car and turned it on immediately. Time to get out of here. 

    As she went on to carry out her next delivery, it was then that Eva realized the next delivery up was another familiar address as well.

    Eva grimaced, worried that the night ahead of her was going to be a long one.

Chapter Text

     Ok , Eva thought, maybe that was all just some freak coincidence. Or one of those times was a hallucination. Maybe I fell asleep without realizing it. Yeah, that makes sense.

    Eva continued her night. Except she recognized those addresses too. They were also the same.

    “I don’t like this,” Eva said to no one.

    But Eva needed her paycheck, so she delivered the pizzas like she was expected to do as a loyal highschool Pizza Hut employee. Like she figured, every door she knocked on was the same as the ones she remembered, conversation barely differing from the last time she had spoken with them.

    As Eva drove back to get her last batch of deliveries for the night, again , she began to wonder what she had done to deserve this. She thought, long and hard, about what might have gone wrong in her life that caused this horrible torture to afflict her, but nothing came to mind.

    At least she was alone. She didn’t know what she would have done if she started freaking out about everything being so similar, but one of her coworkers or literally anyone was in the passenger’s seat next to her.

    Eva reached for the third delivery of the batch, and her music started over again. In horror, she almost dropped the box, but caught it just in time. She glanced up to see the sun was starting to set, again , shining directly into her eyes that she almost teared up. The sun wasn’t the only thing causing her to almost cry, though.

    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Eva muttered, looking at the receipt on the pizza box she had almost chucked. 

    Ok. Third time’s the charm, right? This was all just some freak nightmare, and she’d wake up once she delivered the pizza. Maybe this was her subconscious telling her to not be awkward. Or maybe she had a deep seated fear of the Giles Corey High Tigers, for some reason, and this was a sign to get over that.

    Before shifting gears into drive, Eva pressed her head into the steering wheel, causing a pathetic and drawn out honk to emit from her car. It vocalized how Eva felt at that moment.

    “Alright,” Eva said. “Just deliver the pizza. Keep it cool. Get out of whatever fresh hell this is. Simple! …And you’re talking to yourself. You’ve done this only three times and you’re already losing it. Great.”

    Time seemed to crawl as Eva drove back to 16 Harcourt. She kept thinking to herself about how she needed this to go differently. She’d say something different. It would be different. Things wouldn’t repeat, and it would all be normal. She’d finish her shift, go home, and maybe this would all be revealed to be a terrible dream. Some moral implication lesson would be learned from all of this, like a simplistic kids’ cartoon, and Eva would be free.

    Eva took a deep breath to steady herself before ringing the doorbell again. No, wait, she’d knock this time. That’d be different.

    She waited for a while after she knocked, but there was no response. She tried again, just in case. No one answered.

    Alright. Ring the doorbell.

    The one who said her name was Cairo answered the door again. But this time, another girl was present, instead of the one who said her name was Annleigh.

    “One gluten free cheese?” Eva offered weakly.

    “Who’s gluten free?” Cairo asked. Great, this again.

    “I am?” the second girl asked quizzically. Cairo’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and the other continued. “And so is Kate, Chess, and Annleigh.”

    Cairo clicked her tongue, taking the pizza box from Eva. “You never told me that.”

    “I swear I have before,” the second girl said. “Although it’s not that serious, so maybe that’s why. Wait a minute.”

    The second girl turned to stare at Eva, wide eyed, like she had just won an Oscar.

    “Do you know her?” Cairo asked, looking from Eva to her friend. “You do look familiar.”

    “Cairo!” The unnamed girl grabbed Cairo’s arm, whispering excitedly into her ear. “That’s Eva Sanchez! The highest ranked flyer of the state! West High! We’ve lost to her so many times!”

    Eva patted her hands against her sides quietly, unsure if she should just leave or not.

    “I’m Riley!” The now-named girl stuck her hand out for Eva to shake. “I’m captain of the Giles Corey Tigers. Senior. It’s been an honor to compete against you over the years!”

    Eva laughed nervously, gently shaking Riley’s hand. Wow, she was a lot stronger than she looked. “Nice to meet you. I’m Eva.”

    Riley smiled widely. “It’s so nice to really meet you. I’m a huge fan of your work.”

    Cairo let out a laugh, whispering something in Riley’s ear that made her swat Cairo away.

    “Anyways, thank you for the pizza. I guess we’ll see you soon, games are starting in the near future!”

    “Yeah. See you later!” Eva offered a weak smile, then turned to go back to her car. Hopefully she wouldn’t see them too soon.

    That was way better than last time! Please stop the extreme deja vu now. Eva had successfully not had an awkward encounter with the Tigers, she deserved it at this point.

    She carried on with the night like she had the last times. Every house she knocked on the wooden doors before ringing the doorbells. She crossed her fingers getting back into her car. She watched the car clock for angel numbers. Eva had never been particularly superstitious, but at this point she thought she might as well start if that managed to get her out of this.

    She took a pause when she noticed the clock at 11:59pm. She took in a deep breath and watched it intently, counting to 60. When she got to 29, the world spun for the shortest amount of time. If Eva had blinked, she would have missed it. But that split second of intense spinning caused her to reel back in her seat, blinking in the sudden sunlight beaming through her windshield to the sound of a familiar song playing through the car’s speakers.

    Eva decided she would continue to not be superstitious.

    Eva sat in her car, staring forward for what was probably a good 10 minutes. In those 10 minutes she came up with a plan.

1. Scream.
2. Punch the steering wheel.
3. Shake hand out when knuckle hurts because she just punched her steering wheel without thinking.
4. Do some breathing exercises.
5. Panic because you forgot breathing exercises, then forget how to breathe in general.
6. Relax. She remembered how to breathe again.
7. Accept her cruel fate as punishment for something she did and plead for mercy.
8. Decide that hey, she’s never done anything deserving of this, so she takes that back.
9. Wonder what curse befell her that caused an actual time loop and why she had to be its victim.
10. Stare off into space for 9 minutes and try to think of something else.

    It wasn’t a very good plan, but it was a plan nonetheless. At least it killed some time. Of which it seemed that Eva had a lot of, now.

    Eva impulsively threw the car into drive and tore off to the mansion that kicked this all off. She decided not to use her phone for directions, because she had done this twice before, and maybe this stupid house wouldn’t let her escape from its grasp or some junk.

    Eva proceeded to get lost on the way and had to follow a route on her phone that ate up 15 more minutes, all because she missed a left turn. Well, at least she could find ways to keep the mundane at bay if she was stuck in a wretched state like this for who knows how long.

    16, Harcourt. A stupid street with a giant, stupid house. Eva got the stupid gluten free cheese pizza and got out of her stupid car and walked over to the stupid front door. Eva then decided to stop calling everything stupid because that would definitely accidentally make her call whoever opened the door stupid, and she didn’t want another experience like that. It would be just her luck if the third time was actually the charm, and she was no longer stuck in a time loop, but whoever she called stupid called her workplace and got her fired. That would be really stupid.

    Eva hit the doorbell and waited. Maybe Eva should just go home after this. Maybe she should take a nap. Her head hurt and she was exhausted from thinking about the time loop situation so much.

    The front door flew open, a new girl behind it and Riley running up to her. How many people lived here? Then Eva looked back at the long driveway quickly, counting the cars. There were more than the average for a family, at least Eva assumed. Maybe rich families just gave every kid who could drive a car. Maybe some were in college, or something. Eva didn’t know. She wasn't emotionally attached enough to any of these people to care about their backstories.

    Wait, she just remembered that Cairo and Annleigh mentioned they were on the Tigers team. Riley was the captain of their team. Oh, this was some cheerleader sleepover, wasn’t it? The Titans never really threw those, so it hadn’t initially crossed Eva’s mind. This was making more sense now. What didn’t make sense was the fact that only one pizza was ordered for what was probably a whole team. Wait, the pizza!

    “One gluten free cheese,” Eva said, holding the box out.

    The girl she didn’t know glared at Riley. “I’m not staying to eat.”

    Riley sighed. “Are you positively sure?”

    “I meant what I said. I’m getting Chess and getting out of here. Tell Cairo to stay out of my business.”

    Eva didn’t know what a board game had to do with the beef between this girl and Cairo, but she suspected it had to do with Cairo’s attitude she could pick up from the very short time she had spent with her.

    “Come on, Kate. Don’t let Cairo get to you.”

   The one now named Kate scoffed. “Easy for you to say. She’s not making comments like that about anyone else.”

    “Well, I mean, it’s not like what she’s saying is untrue–”

    “Oh my god, when will you people learn to drop it?! Who I like or don’t like is none of your business!” Kate dramatically took the box of pizza from Eva and shoved it into Riley’s arms. “I’m out of here.”

    Kate brushed past Eva without a second glance, stomping down the pathway. But instead of heading to one of the cars, she went off towards the side of the house.

    Riley clicked her tongue, shaking her head when she saw where Kate was headed. Then she noticed Eva, and her eyes went wide. “Um, thank you!”

    Eva nodded, pausing when Riley looked like she wanted to say more. But the red-head didn’t, and instead promptly closed the door. That was strange. It seemed like the Tigers liked to make more conversation than that. Maybe the Kate girl’s behavior was affecting that this time around. Eva was later than normal, after all. Eva didn’t like the thought that she had conceived a notion of “normal” towards this situation only three goes in.

    Eva headed back to the car. As she was about to drive off to another familiar house, she heard what sounded like a muffled whistle.

    Well, since the Tigers were there, maybe they were doing some convoluted cheerleading practice or something. It wasn’t that doubtful, they needed all of the help they could get.

    Maybe if Eva hadn’t gotten into her car so quickly, or just left the window open a crack, she would have realized that the whistle was actually screaming , and that would save her time. But she didn’t, so she drove off in slightly blissful ignorance, but she would still discover all of that inevitably sometime down the road.