January 14th, 1990 Boscastle, Cornwall (England)

He was standing in a snow drift deep enough to reach his knees, a few feet back from a roadway that curved along the line of a small natural habor, sheltered between two hills. It was obviously the dead of winter, the little town nestled around the harbor itself quiet but for the sound of the local fishermen unloading the morning's catch on the dock. A car door slammed nearby, the sound of a child laughing in exhilaration following it, a female voice calling out, "No, come here - Victoria, don't!"

A flash of color revealed a small child struggling to run through the snow near Jon. She was no more than perhaps two or three years old, all bright red curls crammed underneath a ladybug woollen hat, wrapped up warm against the bitter cold in a padded coat. The little face was dominated by blue eyes that twinkled sweetly as the child giggled her way through a snowdrift, barely two feet ahead of a woman who could only be her mother.

Jon's trip through the past - or whatever it was - was disorienting, to say the least. Upon arrival, he had no idea where he was, other than to know it was supposed to be some sort of defining moment in Vicki's life. The first thing he realized upon his arrival was that it was cold. Damn cold. Frigid middle of the winter cold. Dom had insisted he dress in layers, just in case, but even so, a cold icy wind cut through the layers, chilling him to the bone. In addition, he was feeling dizzy and disoriented and confused, struggling to get his bearings and sort out where he was and what was going on. He heard a woman's voice call out to a small child with bouncing red curls and shining blue eyes, and he felt his heart twist in shocked recognition, gasping in surprise, his breath a cloud of vapor in the cold wintery air. Vicki"

As he watched, the woman caught up with her escaping daughter, an almost identical smile on her face as she swept the giggling toddler up out of the snow to blow a kiss against Vicki's button of a nose. "Silly person," she laughed, swinging the toddler over the deepest part of the snow and forcing through herself. Vicki's mother glanced back at the man standing in the snow as she settled her infant daughterin her arms to prevent further escape, a curious, bemused smile on her face. "Hello?" Her free hand waved to catch Jon's attention. "Are you all right?"

Jon watched, captivated by the scene playing out before his eyes, slowly fitting the pieces of the puzzle together, realizing this woman, who bore strikingly similar features to his Victoria, had to be none other than Vicki's mother. His face paled at this realization, knowing Vicki's mother had died at some point in her childhood, but not knowing exactly when. "Oh, God..." he muttered quietly, feeling suddenly ill. What defining moment was this" Was he there to witness her mother's death or to witness a happy event in her childhood" He wasn't sure and there was no way to know until it all played itself out.

"I..." He faltered as he looked to the woman with the small red-haired child in her arms. "I'm sorry. I'm....a bit lost." It was as good an excuse as any and mostly true.

"Well, you're certainly not dressed for the weather, are you?" The smile levelled on him by the mother of his fiance was warm and teasing, a milder, more nervous version of the grin he'd seen on Vicki's face umpteen times. She looked down at the tiny girl squinting up at Jon from between her scarf and hat. "Here, hold this for a minute. I have a coat in the car that should fit you; my husband keeps trying to lose it, anyway." Without even a moment to consider the lack of wisdom in her action, she handed Jon the two-year-old version of the woman he was going to marry, and turned to wade back through the snow to the car she had just left behind.

Jon stepped out of the snowdrift and onto the road, shoving his bare hands in his jeans pockets to keep them warm, his head bare. Though dressed in layers, he was obviously not properly dressed for winter. No sooner had he jammed his hands in his jeans when Vicki's mother was handing his future fiancee to him and insisting she fetch him a coat.

"No!" he called, on pins and needles that as soon as she stepped away from him something horrible would happen to her, and her death would be his fault. "Please. I'm fine. I just..." Before he could finish protesting, Jon found he had a two-year-old Vicki in his arms, and he turned his head to look into that cherubic, young face, feeling slightly faint. Should he say anything to her" To her, he was a stranger.

"She won't bite you," the woman assured him with a laugh as she opened the trunk of her car, only perhaps ten feet away from him. "Will you, monster?"

The little girl in Jon's arms grinned over at her mother, automatically laying her mittened little hands on the man holding her as she turned that sweet little face to his. "Is you a pun-gwim?" the tiny Vicki asked curiously, wriggling her reddened nose as she looked him over.

Jon trudged through the snow to follow the woman to her car, carrying the child effortlessly in his arms, wondering how they could both be so trusting of a complete stranger. "I'm sorry," he said, turning his face to the miniature Vicki, his cheeks flushing with cold. "A what?" He didn't quite catch what she was trying to ask him at first, and then it suddenly dawned on him what the two-year old was trying to say. "A penguin?" he asked. "If I was a penguin, I'd be wearing a tuxedo," he replied with a small, nervous smile.

"But you has no coat," the child pointed out, sniffing loudly to clear her running nose before continuing on. "People wear coats, an' aminals has hair, an' pun-gwims don't get cold 'cos they don't has coats or hair."

There was a thud as the car was closed up again, Vicki's mother turning to offer Jon a fleece-lined coat with deep pockets. "Here, put this on," she told him, reaching to take her daughter off his hands once again. "It should help hold off the worst of the weather."

Another voice called over the snow-covered road from the mole of the harbor, one of the men at the boats waving over to woman and child. She waved back cheerfully, hiking Vicki higher on her hip.

"I have a coat and hair," Jon pointed out to the child Vicki with a smile, reaching to gently bop her cute little freckled nose. Even as a toddler, she was adorably sweet, and he felt his heart swell with a warm rise of affection. Surrendering her back into her mother's arms, he turned to the woman with a grateful expression on his face as he reached for the coat. "Thank you, ma'am. I really appreciate it."

Exchanging the child for the coat, he drew the coat on over his shoulders, grateful for its warmth, having no idea what he was going to do now. He had no idea where he was or what he was supposed to do or how long he was going to be here. Overhearing a man call from the direction of the harbor, Jon glanced that way, watching as Vicki's mother - whose name he knew was Emily - waved back, wondering who it was she was waving to.

"Well ....I hope you find where you were going to before you lost your coat," Emily nodded to him cheerfully, moving to resume her struggle through the snow with Vicki in her arms, her good deed done for the day.

Across the road, the boats had disgorged their crews and cargos - only the man who had called and waved remaining to tidy the deck of one of the larger boats. It was toward this boat that Emily and Vicki were heading, the toddler watching Jon over her mother's shoulder as she walked away, waving one mittened hand in his direction. "Buh-bye, mister pun-gwim!"

Jon watched as Vicki and her mother bid him farewell and went on their way, feeling a sad, lonely ache in his heart. This wasn't his time or his place. He was only a small boy himself growing up on Rhy'Din, a virtual stranger to the little girl and her mother. He was no one to them, just a lost soul who they'd taken pity on in his moment of need. He was just a witness, but what was it he was here to witness" Was this the fateful moment in time when she lost her mother forever, and if it was, was there anything he could do to stop it'

If the past couldn't be changed, what was he there for at all? He was fulfilling memories of things he hadn't lived yet. It was all making his head ache, and he wondered why he'd let Dom talk him into this. He felt his heart swell again, overcome with emotion, struggling to decide what to do. He had to remind himself that he wasn't here for Emily or to change her fate; he was here to witness critical events in Vicki's past or to become part of them. "Wait!" he called, hurrying after them.

August 20th, 1995 Truro, Cornwall (England)

As the blackness receded, it was to welcome in the bright, hot flicker of sunlight through a canopy of leaves above him. What felt like grass was cool at his back, his clothes dry once again under the warm caress of summer sunshine. A small insistent finger was poking at his shoulder. "Hello' Hello, mister sleeping man. You're in my spot."

The chaos and confusion and tragedy of his first encounter with the two-year old Vicki seemed to fade from Jon's memory as he awoke to find himself in a very different place. Dappled sunlight flickering through the trees, a soft bed of grass at his back, and the bluest eyes he'd ever seen looking down at him from an angelic face framed by ginger red hair.

"V-Vicki?" Jon stammered, somehow knowing it had to be her. She was, after all, what these little travels of his were all about. He groaned as he pushed himself up, blinking through that dizzy, disoriented feeling once again.

She was Vicki; older by several years from the last encounter he had experienced with her. As Jon sat up, the little girl thumped down onto her backside, scratching her sunburned nose as she watched him, startlingly trusting for an only child raised by a single father. They were in a field Jon had a chance at recognising; it bordered the back garden of the cottage where Vicki had grown up outside Truro. In the middle of summer, it rippled with greens and browns and a dappling of wildflowers, some of which had been twined clumsily into this version of Vicki's red hair. "How'd you know my name?"

Grateful for the warm sunshine after the unforgiving cold of winter, Jon stifled a shudder at the memory of it, as if it had only happened a few minutes ago, though in reality, it had been years. He recognized where they were, though he'd only been there once before. Many years from now, he'd visit this place again to ask Vicki's father for her hand in marriage, though to Jon that had already happened a few months ago. He blinked at the girl who plunked down beside him, so trusting, too trusting perhaps, or did part of her remember him' What would she remember" A man she'd called penguin who had tried to save her mother from drowning" It wasn't a memory worth remembering.

Jon's gaze shifted away from that trusting, young face, frowning thoughtfully, unsure how to answer. He couldn't very well tell her the truth. What should he tell her instead" "There are some questions that shouldn't be asked, Victoria."

Her nose scrunched up as he used her full name, those blue blue eyes rolling at his formal tone. "Don't call me that," the girl complained, shaking her head as she leaned back on her hands, dragging her feet through the long grass all around them. "S'too long and boring for a name. What's your name?" She pushed to sit forward again suddenly, curiosity lighting up the familiar eyes once more. "Why're you asleep in my garden" Are you a fairy?" There was a pause before she came to the next logical conclusion. "Do you work for Father Christmas" 'Cos I've been really good this year, and I'll keep being good, I promise, I really will!"

Despite the heaviness in his heart that lingered after witnessing her mother's death, he found her smile and her good cheer infectious, as he always had, as he thought he always would. There was no sadness in this place, and he wouldn't bring that upon her, not now, not ever. He chuckled at her questions, tempted to claim himself to be Oberon - a part he'd played on stage more times than he could remember - but deciding against it. He wasn't sure what to tell her, knowing it wouldn't be right to ask a child to keep him a secret.

Perhaps the truth - or the closest he could come to the truth - was the best solution to the problem. "Do I look like a fairy to you?" he asked, with a dimpled smirk.

Her sunburned face scrunched up once again as she considered him thoughtfully, looking him over before responding. "You would if you were smaller and had wings and shorts and flowers in your hair," was this Vicki's solution to the problem he presented. "But I s'pose fairies can't always look like fairies or they get squished. What's your name?" she asked again, bouncing on her backside as she picked wilting feathers out of her hair. "What are you a fairy of?"

It was hot in the sun, even under the shade of trees - in stark contrast to his adventure in the icy water - and he unzipped the navy blue sweater he wore layered over the crisp, light blue buttondown shirt, shrugging it from his shoulders and folding it neatly in his lap. He arched a brow at her continued belief that he was a fairy, thinking perhaps he shouldn't burst her bubble just yet. "How old are you?" he countered her question with a question.

"I will be seven in a month," she told him proudly, content to believe for now that the strange man she'd stumbled across was something otherworldly. If he was a real man, she'd have to tell her dad, and he got weird when she spoke to strangers. "What's your name?" she insisted again, trying to wheedle the information out of him now. "If you tell me, I'll make you a crown like mine." Her small fingers touched the collection of wildflowers wounds in and out of her hair.

A thought occurred to him, one he knew was risky, but tempting just the same. "What if I told you that you're a princess and I'm your prince, but you have to wait until you're grown before we can be together" Would you still make me a crown?" He crossed his legs as he sat in the cool, green grass beside her, his sweater folded neatly in his lap.

The six-year old considered this quite seriously for a long moment before nodding. "Dad says I'm a princess, but I'm not blonde and he's Dad, so he's just being a silly," she shared conspiratorially. Those blue eyes swept over Jon's face, studying his features closely. "Are you sure you're a prince" You're not blonde either. Where's your horse?" She looked around briefly before yet another question made itself known. "How growed up do I have to be?"

"Who says you have to be blonde to be a princess" Snow White wasn't blonde," he pointed out, studying her as she studied him, turning suddenly serious. "I came a long way to see you, Vicki." He reached out to touch her cheek, unsure if she'd let him. "I can't tell you who I am yet, but I promise, I'll tell you when you're older." He waited to see if she'd pull away from him, knowing he shouldn't touch her, but unable to hold himself back. "All you need to know right now is that I'm someone who cares."

"Sleeping Beauty's blonde," the little girl insisted solemnly, blinking the big blue eyes she had yet to grow into as he reached out to touch her. She stiffened just a bit but didn't pull away, chewing ruthlessly on her chapped lower lip. "How far is a long way?" she asked, surprisingly quiet, measuring each word as it fell between herself and this stange, quiet man who said he cared about her. Most adults talked to her as though she was missing brain cells, but this one didn't even try to talk down to her, even if he wasn't answering any of her questions at all. "How'm I s'posed to learn stuff if no one tells me anything?"

His fingers grazed her cheek gently, but only briefly, like touching a shy foal, not wanting to frighten her off or overwhelm her. She might be his Vicki, but she was still just an impressionable and innocent child. "Do you know the story of Peter Pan?" he asked, drawing his hand back, once again answering her question with a question, but one that had a point to it.

April 3rd, 2001 Plymouth, Cornwall (England)

The change in air smashed into Jon as he faded from the meadow. From hot, breathless summer to cool urban springtime, complete with the bitter scent of a city, the noise of many people, of traffic on roads, and far closer, the roar of an express train thundering past. He was on a train platform this time; the place almost deserted in growing darkness but for a few stragglers on the platform opposite waiting for their connection.

A glance to the left toward the long stretch of this platform revealed a teenaged shape slumped on a bench at the far end. The coil of copper red hair tumbling down over one arm identified her straightaway. The fact that she was sitting all alone on a train station in growing darkness with an overstuffed rucksack by her feet was not so clear.

The change was so quick and so sudden, it took Jon's breath away, and he found himself suddenly standing on a train platform, staggering a moment as a train thundered past, surrounded by the sights and smells and sounds of a big city. It was a far different setting than the quiet tranquility of the meadow behind the cottage where Vicki grew up or the harbor where her mother had lost her life. The thought of that memory, still so fresh in Jon's mind, though faded from Vicki's, still weighed heavily on his heart, and he wondered what would happen if she ever remembered that he had been there. It took a moment before Jon got his bearings. He wasn't sure where he was, but a sign told him he was in Plymouth. The name meant nothing to him, but the voices around him sounded English, and hence he surmised he must still be in England.

Another look another revealed the object of his affections and the reason he was here - a teenage girl with long, red hair slumped on a bench with a pack near her feet. It didn't take a detective to figure out who that girl was, though Jon had no way of knowing why she was here. Going off to school, maybe? Or to a relative's on holiday' There was no way to know, unless he asked.

He watched her quietly a moment, knowing without a doubt that this was a younger Vicki, thirteen or fourteen years old maybe. This Vicki didn't look very happy, and he wondered once again, why this particular moment was important in the vast history of her life. It was a bit chilly here, the hot summer sunshine long gone, and Jon drew the sweater back over his shoulders, zipping it halfway up his chest before making his way toward the forlorn-looking teenager who unknowingly was awaiting his arrival.

"Hello," he greeted her with a warm smile, wondering if she'd remember him, if there'd be any sense of recognition in her face when she looked at him.

Her hands were buried in the pockets of her jacket, the blue eyes she had almost grown into fixed on the toes of her boots as she scuffed them back and forth against the rough tarmac of the platform, oblivious to the approach of a man she hadn't seen since she was seven years old. Hearing his voice, her head snapped up, eyes widening with a shock of recognition, warm and relieved for an intense moment before she seemed to remember herself, settling her expression into something sullen and self-pitying. "Oh," she said heavily. "It's you. Took you long enough."

Jon's smile faded in the wake of the teenager's angst. Angst was an emotion he was well familiar with, but not in connection with irrepressible, ever-optimistic Victoria Marshall. A pang of guilt once again made itself known, but he pushed it selflessly aside in the wake of her sadness. Jon took a seat, uninvited, beside the sullen teenager and turned his glance toward her, offering a lame but true explanation for his extended absence before trying to get to the heart of the matter. "I'm sorry, Vicki. I don't have any control over when or where I pop up."

"Yeah, well, it would've been nice to have someone normal to talk to," she countered in a sulky tone. The onset of puberty, while doing wonders for slimming the rounded face and helping her to grow into the potential of herself, had apparently removed the sunshine from Victoria Marshall's outlook on life. But, of course, she was as enthusiastic about wallowing in that angst as she was about everything else. "Where did you go' Is this weird stalking or something - are you waiting until I'm old enough and then you're going to kidnap me and take me away to your magic land where anything can happen?" It may have been years ago to her, but she remembered almost every word; Jon had made a bigger impression than he might have thought.

Jon chuckled sardonically at her question. How had this Vicki, so full of teenage angst and anger, turned into his Vicki, he wondered. He didn't remember himself at thirteen or fourteen, but knew from his journals that his own teenage years were just as difficult. It was a difficult age where one was leaving the magic and innocence of childhood behind and moving toward the harsh reality of life in the real world as a grown adult. "No, nothing like that." He studied her a moment, weighing how much he should tell her. She was no longer a child of six almost seven, but was she old enough to accept an explanation she might not understand" He hestitated a moment before deciding that once again the truth was the best choice to make. "I'm from your future."

She snorted derisively, rolling her eyes. "Please," was her sarcastic response, not believing a word of it. "I'm not six anymore, you don't have to tell me stories so I won't scream 'stranger danger' and get you arrested." She shifted, one foot hooking her straining rucksack between her knees, head tipping back to look at the clock on the station wall.

"You don't have to believe me, but it's the truth," he told her simply. If she looked at him hard enough, she might realize he hadn't changed. He hadn't aged a day and was still wearing the same clothes he had on that day in the meadow. "To you, it's been years, but for me, it's only been a few minutes since I last saw you."

Finally those sullen eyes lifted to look at him properly, the usually smiling mouth turned down at the corners with a real effort to stay sulky in the face of seeing someone who'd been the subject of many childish daydreams for the last six years. "So ....so you don't know about ..."

The teenaged Vicki hesitated, lifting her thumb to her lips to chew on her nail, obviously torn between asking him if he knew about this something weighing on her mind or just outright telling him. There was no consideration that he was lying to her, or that she shouldn't trust him, the legacy of her mother lingering in how open and easy the daughter found it to trust.

"Don't know?" he echoed, mirroring her frown, his eyes conveying concern and a bit of worry. Whether she was thirteen or not, she was still his Vicki, and seeing her as a child, seeing these tiny snippets of her life, only made him love her all the more. He wasn't sure what it was she was upset about, but knew enough about her life to eliminate a few possibilities. "Is this about your father?" he asked, taking a stab in the dark.

Her expression darkened a little. "Little bit," she admitted with a scowl, lowering her eyes to her knees. There was a long pause as she scuffed her toes back and forth over the tarmac once again, dropping her hand from her mouth as finally she offered up a partial explanation. "He's screwing my form tutor."

Jon had to stop himself from barking out a laugh at this sudden outburst from the teenager. Even at thirteen, she was bluntly honest. It was one of the traits he loved most about her. He could always count on her to tell him the truth, even if he didn't want to hear it. "Oh, I see," he replied, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible. "I'm sorry," he said, unsure what to say to that or how to make her feel better.

The tears hadn't fallen, but they were there for him to see, her lips pursed to try and contain the urge to turn into a weepy mess. Angst was one thing; crying all over your first real crush' At thirteen years old, that was not an option. "Why'd you love me" I'm spotty and irritating and I haven't got any boobs." A thought occurred to the young Vicki as she looked up at Jon, startled by an intuitive leap. "If you're really from my future, does that mean you ....Are you my boyfriend?"

Jon smiled fondly down at her. Even at thirteen, she was sharp as a whip. He wasn't sure what the rules of this little game were - or even if there were any rules at all - and he didn't want to tempt fate, but he had secretly pledged to be honest, and he wasn't about to lie to her now.

"Something like that," he replied, rubbing a thumb against her cheek, though the tears were only threatening and had not yet fallen. "You have a lot of living to do before that, and I don't really know what..." He faltered a moment before continuing. "I don't really know what?s supposed to happen, but I do know that running away from your problems won't solve them. It will only hurt those you love and put yourself in danger."

She sighed, pouting unhappily at him. "You're going to make me go home, aren't you?" Teeth resumed their chew on her thumbnail, ravaging the smooth line in a clear sign of her anxiety over what sort of reception would be waiting for her. She didn't know, as Jon did, how very close she would be to her father in her adult years; how all this angst would be worth it, if only she could be patient and endure the interfering Mrs Patterson. "When are you going to come back again?"

His heart lurched at the question, so innocent in the asking, but so hard to actually answer. "I don't know," he answered truthfully, a sad frown on his face. "When it matters most, I think." It was the way this thing seemed to be going, with him popping up at the most crucial points in her childhood. He wasn't sure why he'd been there in the meadow, but at this point in her life, she seemed to need him somehow, needing to know there was hope for the future and that things would get better.

Jon considered quietly a moment and then, completely on impulse, he tugged the ring from his finger that marked him a Granger - the ring that he never took off. He reached for her hand and pressed the ring into her palm, folding her fingers over it and closing his own hand around hers, gaze moving from their clasped hands to the flowering face of her youth. "Keep this as a reminder that every cloud has a silver lining. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, Vicki, and I'll be waiting for you there."

Her fingers closed over the ring with barely a second glance at it, blue eyes locked onto those of the warm man who gave it to her, who seemed to be travelling through her life in fast forward. She wondered vaguely how old she was going to be before he stopped disappearing when they met, twisting to wrap Jon up in the kind of hug most teenagers reserved only for the closest family or friends in the most private setting. "I'm going to hold you to that," she informed him, pecking a shy kiss to his cheek before settling back onto the bench. "Can I ask you a question?"

She had no way of knowing just then what exactly that ring was or how much it meant to him, the beauty of it being that upon his return, he'd probably get it back. It struck him suddenly that even though she'd apparently known him all her life, she'd never told him but had waited patiently for it all to play out, and he wondered with a small ironic smile if it was she who had, in the end, been the one to stalk him, not the other way around. He blinked out of his thoughts as she pressed a sweetly innocent kiss to his cheek and he arched a curious brow. "What's that?"

The question was apparently one that made the teenaged Vicki a little awkward, a shy cast touching her face as she fidgeted on the bench beside him, biting at her lower lip. "Um ..." A blush lit up the freckled cheeks as she lifted a hand, self-consciously tucking her hair back behind her ear. "How long do I have to wait until you're properly my boyfriend?"

He withdrew his hand from hers, pulling slowly back to allow for a polite space between them. She was, after all, only a child of thirteen, and he was a man of twenty-six. She had a lot of catching up to do. "It will be a while yet. You remember that magic place I told you about?" He paused a moment for her to jog her own memory regarding what he'd told her nearly seven-year-old self. "The me that lives there is still growing up. I'm only a little older than yourself. I haven't known you that long, but....you've known me most of your life." He frowned again, hoping he wasn't confusing her too much as confusing as it all was.

She blinked in confusion. "That makes no sense at all," the matter-of-fact teenager informed him, scratching at her neck. "How can I know you all that time and you not know me" It's silly." A strange look crossed her face. "Oh, I get it," she said suddenly, flashing a grin that was very familiar for a brief moment. "You're trying to distract me so I won't make you feel awkward about flirting with a kid."

She snickered wickedly, her mood infinitely improved. Settling back as a new train rumbled to the platform in front of them, she opened her hand, fingering the ring covetously. It was too big to sit comfortably even on her thumb, but it was obvious that she was going to treasure it.

Jon chuckled, the mood lightening, the first hints of the Vicki he'd come to know and love shining through, her irrepressible good nature and optimism overcoming even the worst problems. "You're the one that's flirting, kid," he reminded her with a cheerful, dimpled grin. He got a feeling this meeting was almost at an end, but there was one last thing he needed to tell her before he was whisked away to the future. "Promise me something?"

Looking up, she closed her fingers around the ring once again, scrubbing the other hand through the windswept tangle of her copper hair. "Promise you what?" she asked curiously, though a cheeky flicker in her expression warned him that a Vicki-ism was on it's way. "My virginity is definitely yours, you know."

He laughed again, once more reminded of the cheeky, flirtatious Vicki he would meet at some point in her future, since it had already happened in his past. "I'm not talking about your virginity!" It was his turn to blush a little. Even though this was Vicki, it was a thirteen-year old Vicki, and for a brief moment, it made him feel that age himself, though he didn't remember it.

She let out a triumphant cackle as he blushed, the sound echoing away from them in the quiet station as she pointed at his burning cheeks. "I knew it! I bet you screw the big me, like, once a week whether you want to or not!" Grinning cheerfully, she pulled her bag up onto her lap, obviously finally preparing to go and find herself a train back to Truro. "What did you want me to promise you?" she giggled, infinitely pleased with herself.

The blush deepened. If she only knew. Once a week" It was more like several times a day. He cleared his throat to cover his embarrassment at the remark, relieved that she seemed to have decided to go home. His expression turned solemn, blue eyes deep with earnestness. "Promise me you won't give up hope and you won't run away." The expression on his face and in his eyes hinted at the solemnity of this promise, no matter how innocent it might sound. "Promise me you'll never give up on me."

It was his turn to seem to need something from her, knowing she was waiting for him in his future, but needing to hear it from her anyhow.

A small furrow appeared between her brows as she held his gaze, her thoughts transparent as she wondered why he might need her to make that promise. Was he going to upset her, or be horrible before he turned into the lovely man she trusted so easily'

"All right. I promise." She bit her tongue thoughtfully for a moment. "Is it going to be bad" Is that why you need me to promise?"

There was that frown again, a worried expression on his face, not wanting her to know what the future might hold, the pain they both had to go through before they reached their happy ending. He had already survived the trial by fire, but she had yet to experience it. "It's going to be hard, but someone told me once that nothing really worth anything is ever easy." He moved to his feet, somehow sensing this visit was nearly at an end, and he leaned close to press a protective, adoring kiss against her forehead. "I'll see you soon. Promise."

Her eyes widened, brows rising in apparent surprise at the way he wasn't out-and-out vetoing her intention to lose her virginity while he was here. "How big a tripod?" she asked curiously. "Are we talking ...donkey-big here?" Her grin flickered for a moment, the young mind running over giggly conversations with her best friend as they had speculated on the size of the Jon whose career this Vicki had been obsessively documenting in her scrapbook journal for the last two years.

"We are talking just right big," he replied, a teasing gleam of mischief shining in bright blue eyes. "Like the perverted version of Goldilocks." He hadn't agreed to divest her of her virginity just yet, but he was having fun playing this little game of flirtation with her, knowing he should try to behave. But this was Vicki - sixteen or not - and he suddenly wondered just how big an impression and an influence he had actually been on her.

"See, that's just not fair," she whined, offering him big eyes a pout that no doubt worked wonders on her father every time he tried to discipline his daughter. Jon had not encountered Vicki's pleading face yet in their time together thus far, but it was quite accomplished even at the age of sixteen. "You can't dangle that in front of me if you're not going to use it!"

Jon broke into a peal of laughter at her presumably innocent choice of words. "I haven't dangled anything yet!" Oh, this was just too much fun. He knew he was being evil, but he just couldn't help himself. He waggled a slice of half-eaten toast at her, reprovingly. "You, Miss Victoria Marshall, are a horny teenager."

She pointed a finger back at him, grinning as she attempted to come up with something witty in response. Nothing arrived in timely fashion, which was how he ended up being told, "Well, you owe me at least a snog and a fumble. Naked. So there." Out came the tongue again. "You're my boyfriend, I want sex. Aren't you supposed to be so randy you'll drop your knickers at the first hint, or is that you from now?"

He chuckled again at her irrepressible flirtation, but before he could parry her remark, she had mentioned his current self, and the expression on his face changed, hinting at the confusion he felt when faced with a past he no longer remembered. "I don't..." He broke off, shrugging his shoulders, and turning his attention and the look of turmoil toward his unfinished breakfast. "You don't want to meet the me from now."

She went quiet, blue eyes blinking wide with guilty concern as he looked away from her, wondering what was wrong with what she had said, what had upset him. At sixteen, Vicki hadn't seen this side of her occasional visitor before, her shoulders slumping guiltily as she bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice tiny in the suddenly awkward silence. "I didn't mean ....I mean, obviously you loving me doesn't mean that your littler you would. I really put my foot in my mouth, didn't I?"

Sobered by thoughts of his younger self - a self he didn't remember and who was as much a stranger to him as he was to her - Jon shrugged again, not wanting to make her feel bad, especially on her birthday. He wasn't sure once again why he was here, why this particular moment in time. It couldn't just be to claim her virginity - there had to be more to it than that.

"Sorry, I just..." He wasn't sure how to explain or even how much to explain. He didn't think he was here to give her a rundown on what would befall her in her future with regard to him. "I don't think you'd like me very much if you met me now. I'm kind of screwed up."

He knew that if she continued to follow his life up to the point where he actually met her on Rhy'Din, this would all become clear before long. He'd asked her once - not long ago, it seemed - not to give up on him, and that request seemed to come back to haunt him now.

"But you're not screwed up now," she offered quietly. "I mean the you sitting here, not the other you - this is weird to talk about." The young woman shook her head with a shrug of her own, unfolding long legs to climb into his lap and hug him. "I am sorry," she apologised again, rubbing her cheek against his. "I didn't think. And I've been really looking forward to seeing you again, I didn't want to upset you."

He leaned back in the chair, surprised to find her climbing into his lap - this younger version of Vicki, so like the Vicki of the future and yet so different. Had he ever been that young" He must have been, though he didn't remember it, knowing at least he'd been pretty screwed up in his youth, up until the time that he'd met her. He sobered, all teasing aside, a hint of the Jon she'd come to know when she was older - a hint of the serious, expressive, emotional, almost haunted look in his eyes. "Remember when I told you not to give up on me?"

"I promised I wouldn't," she nodded, somehow managing to reiterate that promise in her own solemn nod. This younger version of the woman he was going to make his wife was fascinated by how expressive his eyes were, how they dominated his face in a way she hadn't noticed before. "Do you need me to promise again? I was thinking about doing a tattoo or something, what do you think?"

The thought of her tattooing something to remind herself of him brought a wistful, almost amused smile to his face, and though she was just barely more than a child, he couldn't help feeling an irrepressible desire to kiss her. He focused his vision on her eyes, the one feature that never seemed to change, no matter how old or young - the same lively blue eyes that took him in from the moment she was a child of two until, he imagined, she was old and gray. The beauty of that thought was that they'd grow old and gray together.

He reached for her hand, linking his fingers with hers, amazed she didn't seem to think him already old at twenty-six. "No, no tattoo," he reproved gently. Nothing to mar her beauty, no matter how well-intentioned. "The truth is you're my reason for living, Vicki. If it wasn't for you, I'm not sure I'd still be here."

"No tattoo." It was as much of a promise as anything else she'd said, but that was swept aside by what he then told her. To be told at sixteen that you had such a profound effect on anyone's life, much less the life of a man who said he loved you - or at least the older version of you - was stunning in its way. Nothing Jon could ever have said or done could have impressed upon the girl sat in his lap in that moment how important it was that she not ever give up on him, no matter what she heard or saw. There was no answer she could give, and yet ....that irrepressible side of her just had to stretch its wings. "So ....is that a yes to the sex thing?"

15th March, 2011 Rhy'Din General Hospital, Rhy'Din

This place and time was quiet. Somehow quieter than the simple ease and comfort of a sixteen-year old's bedroom in the middle of a lazy autumn morning. Even before the darkness fled, the smell was enough to tell Jon where he was. Clinical disinfectant, the scent of bodies in various states of wellness ....he was in a hospital. A voice nearby was recognisable through the dizziness, a low cadence beneath the steady rasp and beep of medical machinery.

As the new scene came into focus, Jon would find himself behind a small group of people in the familiar confines of a corridor in Rhy'Din General Hospital. A mane of red hair directly in front of him was clearly Vicki, but her attention - everyone's attention - was fixed through an open door nearby. Inside that room lay a man on life support, bandaged about his head, unconscious and still.

"....of life yet?" that familiar nearby voice resolved itself into words, and another known voice answered. At the front of the little gaggle of people Jon found himself standing behind, Mataya De Luca was pale, wrapped close into Max Yako's arms as she answered the questions of the concerned wellwishers from the Shanachie Theater.

"No, there's ....there's no change yet," she was saying quietly. "They're not gonna know if there's any lasting damage until he wakes up."

Vicki - a silent, tense presence directly in front of Jon - shuddered at this news, her head snapping up at a quiet sob from inside the room itself. Correy was sat by the bed, holding tightly onto the hand of the man lying there and crying, pleading with him to wake up. This was a day no one who had lived it could possibly have forgotten, and yet Jon had never known that Vicki had been here too.

"It's family only to visit right now," Mataya went on. "I'll get a few things in gear, we can put together a package for him if he wakes up."

The if did the damage. The silent redhead stiffened with a jerk, and abruptly turned away, pushing past Jon without a second glance, one hand pressed over her mouth. She had to get away before she drew attention to herself. No one knew she had the right to grieve more keenly than any of the other casual friends Jon had made at the theater.

The Jon that was catapulting through time felt the now familiar wave of dizziness wash over him as he arrived at Vicki's next defining moment. He stood quietly waiting for the feeling to pass, while he slowly oriented himself with his surroundings. The press of people made him feel almost claustrophobic for a moment, as crowds of people always did. It took him a moment to orient himself and sort out where he was and what was going on around him, but when he did, it hit him like a blow, like a punch to the gut. He recognized the faces and voices around him, first Mataya's, then Max's, and then the redhead who stood just out of reach - Vicki.

He recognized these surroundings - the sights and smells and sounds. This was a place he recognized from his own memory, though he did not remember the circumstances which had led up to him being here. He only remembered the waking, as if from a dream - a man with no memory of his past and no clear vision of his future, struggling to relearn the simplest tasks and figure out where he fit into the jigsaw puzzle of life around him.

This Jon had come a long way from that initial moment of awakening. He'd accepted the fact that his past was a blank and moved on to rebuild his life and his relationships. This Jon had never seen what had happened after he'd been shot. He'd never witnessed the shock and the grief of those around him. He'd only known their happiness and relief when he'd awoken, along with their encouragement and their expectations. Somewhere deep inside, he'd known how much pain one bullet must have caused those around him, but he'd never really realized the gravity of it until now.

Was it a gift or a curse to witness such a moment' To know unequivocally how much those around him were affected by a single tragic event in his life he'd had no control over" But he knew how it had turned out. He knew that in the end, he'd triumphed. Those gathered here, both family and friends, didn't know that yet; that triumph was yet to come.

Jon watched as Mataya shared what she knew with those gathered around, clinging to Max - her source of strength in her time of need. Something broke and twisted inside him as he watched her, recognizing her grief and her worry, not having really realized what he meant to her until now. But he wasn't here to witness this because it was an important event in his life, but because it was crucial to Vicki.

His attention turned then to the man who was lying on the bed, hooked up to life support that was beeping in quiet assurance that he was still barely alive. He knew it was himself that lay there and found it strange that he could somehow exist in the same place in two separate bodies. He strangely felt nothing for the man that lay there, knowing it was himself, knowing what he still had to go through, already knowing he'd survive and that struggle would be well worth the effort. His throat tightened when his gaze fell on the young man at his side, filling him with pity and regret, not for the relationship that had ended, but for the pain he had unknowingly put the young man through.

And yet, he knew that Correy, too, would triumph in the end, finding a new beginning even after their relationship ended. Despite the circumstances, life would go on, and everyone here would survive this event and move past it. Jon knew this because he had already experienced it.

Mataya's voice drew him back and he heard the uncertainty in her voice, unsure if the Jon Granger of this time and place would overcome this. Tempted as he was to step forward, to tell them all that everything would be all right in the end, he knew that was somehow against the rules. It wasn't how things were supposed to happen. Mataya and the others would just have to have faith and let the past play itself out.

Jon's gaze at last drifted to the redhead just out of reach. No one had to tell him who she was - he'd recognize her anywhere. He knew it was his Vicki, only months before she finally gathered the courage to confront him in his trailer on the set of Crowes. It had been at a time when he was nearly at his lowest, never knowing that she would become the reason for him to go on.

Jon watched as Vicki turned, pushing past without seeing him, the crowd and the voices around him fading into the background noise, like the buzz of insects in his ears. It was her that drew his attention, it was her he was here for.

She didn't look back, her hand lowering from her face to press deep into the pockets of her long sweatshirt. This day was just over a year ago to the present; this Vicki was twenty-three, had lived in Rhy'Din a little over five months, and had had to cope with not one, but two announced intentions to marry by the man she'd come all this way to find. First Nikki, then Correy ....and now the man who had promised her when she was thirteen that he'd be waiting for her when the time came might die. It was a horrifying, terrifying thought, and she hadn't even really met him yet.

Her stride lengthened until she was just this side of running, needing to be out of the hospital, away from anyone who knew her, anyone who might be suspicious of how keenly she was feeling the fear of loss for a man no one else thought she'd even spoken to yet.

More than likely the only person there who had any inkling of what Vicki was feeling, Jon's heart twisted inside his chest, a sense of panic rising, unsure what she was about to do, but knowing what she must be feeling. His past self had never known that she'd already known him, been waiting for him, had loved him all her life, and he felt almost to blame for causing her this pain, and yet, he knew one thing she didn't - he knew it all turned out fine in the end.

He smiled through a veil of his own tears, crying together through this moment, sharing their grief and their worries and their pain. "Would I be standing here with you right now if I was already dead?" He tried to point out the logic in a completely illogical situation, tears spilling over onto his cheeks, tears the Vicki of his future would so easily understand and forgive.

"You're the one who sent me here, Vicki. You're the one who wanted me to see all these moments in your past, to fulfill your own experiences, to imprint myself on your heart and your life. Do you think it's been easy..." His voice broke again, going back to his very first memory of her, as a small child, trying desperately to save her mother. "Don't you think I've wanted to cheat' To tell you everything that would happen" I asked you not to give up on me. If you give up on me now, then what?s the point of all this?"

The tears welled up in her eyes all over again, stung and hurt by the accusation in his tone, by the pain and anger and injustice that welled between them, and Vicki flinched back as though he had physically struck her, her reddened face paling abruptly. "So this is all my fault, is it?" she asked in a trembling voice, "I'm not allowed to resent feeling like this because you wouldn't have been there if I hadn't said you could, is that it' If you resent it so much, why the hell didn't you stop coming back to me" Why tell me you love me, why let me wrap my life around yours" You could have got rid of me at any time, and just the fact that you've been jumping through my life should have told you that I will never give up on you!"

She was shaking, furious and hurt and shocked into losing her temper with him when the woman she would be a year from now had never lost control like this. "You can be engaged to another woman, to another man, and I'm still here, I'm still waiting! And then when I need you to tell me it'll all be okay, that I don't have to feel as though my heart's being ripped out through my chest, you're here and snapping at me because you think there's no point to all this!"

He just gaped at her, never having experienced her anger before. Ever. It stung deeply, and he wondered if he deserved it, but she didn't remember her mother's death. She didn't remember that he'd been there to witness that very first tragically defining moment in her life. What would have happened if he hadn't been there" Would things have been different' What would have happened if he hadn't been there at the train station to stop her from running away' What would have happened if he hadn't been there to give her her first kiss, to imprint himself on her, body, mind, and soul" Would she have found another" Would he have lost her all together" And what if he had" Where would he be now" Alive or dead" His chest felt tight and heavy with unshed tears, the grief of witnessing her first tragedy hovering so close to the surface.

"I'm here because I love you," he told her finally, his voice trembling with emotion, unable to find the right words to explain other than for that simple, honest, heartfelt reply. "I'm here because you asked this of me and because I'd give you the moon if it was mine to give."

Her hands flailed for a moment, slapping to her sides as she stared back at him, her anger crumbling away into tears once again. "I'm here because I love you. I always have." She drew in a shuddering breath, twisting to thump down onto the low wall behind her, hands hanging loosely between her knees. "This is so f*cked up, Jon." Shaking fingers wiped the water from her cheeks ruthlessly as she looked up at him. "It hurts seeing you with anyone else," she admitted softly. "But I'm not brave enough to even introduce myself to the you I just met. You don't even know I exist."

So, this was the heart of the matter for her - jealousy and worry that he loved another, that he'd never come to know her, or even realize she existed without a little help from him. Once more, he wasn't sure if it was cheating to tell her about the future. He'd already probably told her too much, and yet, what would it hurt' It would ensure they'd be together, and who could blame him for wanting to cheat just a little. He chewed on his lip as he debated what to do, whether to guide her or not, but the stakes were too high for them both. It felt wrong to lead her the way he was, almost as if he had guided her toward him her entire life, and yet, who was to say this wasn't the way things were meant to be?

He drew a deep breath before finding his voice again, frowning as he revealed a few hints of what was to come. "Things aren't going to work out between me and Correy." He shrugged, unable to explain what he didn't remember. "I've....changed. I'm not the same man I used to be and....It just doesn't work out." He paused a moment as if to let that sink in, shuffling uncomfortably as he debated how much to tell her.

"Oh God, don't tell me things like that." She surged up onto her feet, one hand rising to cover his mouth. "It's none of my business, and I'm just being a bitch by taking it all out on you right now. I know I'm being a bitch, don't even think about telling me otherwise." Blue eyes stared into blue as this Vicki looked up at him, tears and upset forgotten in the face of preserving what he had and what she would, hopefully, soon have. "I'm sorry you're hurting so much. I wish I could make it stop."

Should he tell her how he hated the way some people couldn't forgive a past he could no longer remember" Vicki had never seen him that way. She had always started from scratch, never judging him, never accusing, but she had never known that Jon, only this one.

He shook his head at her, emotions bubbling up just beneath the surface, struggling not to break down and start crying again. He was supposed to be there to support her, to help her through this. It wasn't supposed to be about him, but their lives were now so inexorably linked, wound together like a web of fate, everything that affected one affected the other. He pried her hand from his mouth to let him speak, linking his fingers to hers, only then realizing she was wearing the ring he'd given her when she was only thirteen - a symbol of his love and devotion and a promise that they'd be together in the future, if only she believed and trusted in him.

"I don't know why I'm here. I have no control over where or when I end up. I just know this moment is important somehow. It's not about me, Vicki. All of this is about you. It's about you finding your way to me. It's about us. We're going to be together. I promise you that. We are together. And we're happy. God, I'm so happy. You make me happy." His voice broke again, this time at the honesty of those words that came from deep inside his heart, all the love for her bubbling up and bringing fresh tears to his eyes. "I don't want to be with anyone else. Just you. There's no one but you."

Her fingers wound through his, holding on tightly, wanting the happiness he described now. She didn't want to wait, and yet, she could see now that the Jon lying in that hospital bed wasn't the Jon she loved. Not yet. She bit her lip, not wanting to cry on him again despite the wobble in her expression. "Did you know about all this?" she asked very quietly. "Will I tell you? Or shouldn't I?"

He shook his head, pausing a moment to sniffle back the threat of tears and dash the wetness from his face with the hand that wasn't clinging to hers. "No, I didn't know. Not until now. You never told me." His reply came quietly, sounding suddenly weary with emotion, the long journey through the years taking its toll, but nearly at its end. Should he tell her more or leave it at that"

"Then I won't tell you," she agreed softly, leaning close into him, regretting losing her temper in the face of his obvious struggle to contain his own emotional reaction to seeing her lifetime in so short a stretch of hours. "It's almost time for you to go, isn't it?" Her brow furrowed as she spoke, old enough now, experienced enough to recognise the sense of dislocation for what it was. Her time with the Jon she'd known all her life was coming to an end. Her time with the Jon who knew nothing about her was soon to begin.

He felt it, too, and nodded his head, letting go of her hand to wrap his arms around her, needing in that moment to hold her close and know that this was real. He regretted leaving her like this, and yet, he already knew how things would turn out, that when he returned it would be to her open and waiting arms. He had decided there was one last thing he needed to tell her, stacking the deck fate had dealt them in their favor once and for all.

"Lelah is going to open a movie studio on Rhy'Din." He didn't bother to explain who Lelah was. She'd only just arrived on Rhy'Din and hadn't met Vicki yet, but she would very soon. "We're going to meet very soon, but....I wasn't in a good place then, and you're going to have to be persistent."

Leaning close into his arms, this Vicki seemed to know that this was a goodbye. A real goodbye. The next time they met ....for her, it would be the beginning of something; for Jon, he would be returning to the loving woman he'd left behind him to take this journey in the first place. "I'm good at persistent," she murmured, hugging him warmly. Her head tipped back to look up at him, blue eyes making the one promise that meant the world in the moments before her lips confirmed it. "I'm not giving up, Jon."

He tipped his head back to look down at her, his face wet with tears, a mix of joy and sorrow. "Wait 'til after the movie is over," he told her, giving her the final hint of a future that for him had already happened. "I'll be ready then." He could feel Time tugging him, and he knew he had only another moment, maybe two, but he couldn't leave her yet, not until he reminded her of the fire that had once blazed between them and would do so again. He leaned in to kiss her, a promise of the passion that was yet to come.

"I love you, Victoria Marshall," he whispered as their lips parted, surrendering himself to Time and trusting that when he returned home, all would be well with the world.

Cosmo barked once and then settled down on the floor beside the bed, content to be close by, happy his master had returned. Jon let Vicki draw him onto his back, too weary to resist, the mattress feeling heavenly beneath him after what seemed like a very long time away from home. He covered her hand with his own, the Granger ring missing from its place on his right ring finger, but that was the least of his worries. This encounter - the very first one where he'd met her mother and a very young Vicki - worried him most. What would she say when she learned he'd been there the day her mother had drowned"

"You were two or three, I think. I'm not sure," he confessed.

That was all he needed to say. Two or three years old, and there was only one defining moment in her lifetime he could possibly have witnessed. The intensity of his tears made more sense now as her thumb stroked against his chest beneath his hand ....her fingers bearing two signs of his love for her. One was the antique sapphire ring he had given her when they'd made their engagement official; the other was the Granger ring that was missing from his own hand.

"I see," Vicki murmured gently, not asking him for any more than he was prepared to share. "Whatever happened, Jon ....it wasn't your fault."

No, it wasn't his fault. He knew that. It wasn't her fault either. She'd only been a small child, curious like all children were, and her mother had acted on instinct, her foot slipping on the ice, the victim of a tragic accident. It was his failure to save her that haunted him most, the sound of a heartbroken child's keening cries still echoing in his head. There were those tears again, running in rivulets down his face, his chest tight with the memory of it. She seemed to somehow sense what event it was that was haunting him, though she shared no memory of it. Whether she had buried the memory as too painful or simply forgotten with the passing of time, he wasn't sure. Either way, he remembered an event in her life she had clearly forgotten, and he was the only one able or willing to fill that tiny piece of the puzzle that was her past, whether he wanted to or not.

When he finally spoke, his voice was strained with emotion and grief, hoping she could somehow forgive him for what had happened so long ago in her past. "I tried to save her, Vicki. I tried..."

"Shh ..." Again, she shook her head, not wanting him to hurt himself with sharing anything that would cause him any more distress. "You can't change the past, Jon, no matter how much you want to. I wouldn't be the person I am if Mum had lived. Dad wouldn't be with Marie. I would probably not be here now." She inched closer. "Don't let it upset you too much, love. It's done."

"It was so cold." He shivered at the memory of it, though he wasn't cold himself, at least not now. "She loved you," he continued, exhaling slowly, turning his head to regard her, those same bright blue eyes that had looked out at him from a cherubic face. He smiled, despite his tears and chuckled a little. "You called me Mr. Penguin."

She laughed with him, easing past the memory of the cold winter sea. "I was obsessed with penguins when I was little," she explained with a smile, resting close by his side. "I assumed that they were magical because they didn't wear coats to keep warm." Her nose bumped his lovingly, her smile softening in a suddenly vulnerable manner as she realised what he hadn't quite said. "You met my mum?" Those blue eyes were abruptly swimming with tears, surprised and deeply moved by the fact that Jon now remembered a woman she had no conscious recollection of.

He turned onto his side to face her, sweeping a strand of copper back from her face, her tears mirroring his in nearly matching blue eyes. He had no idea what had happened to the coat her mother had given him, no proof that he had met her, but for the ability to share the memory of it.

"Yes," he answered quietly. "She was beautiful, Vicki." Photographs did her no justice. "She slipped on the ice on the dock, hit her head, I think." He didn't bother to mention the fact that Vicki herself had nearly fallen into that same icy water and shared her mother's fate. "I..." He broke off a moment, a dull ache in his chest at the memory of it. "I jumped in after her, but....It was too late."

He hadn't thought at the time what would have happened if he'd drowned himself. He had acted on instinct alone, his only thought at the time to try and save her mother from drowning.

She bit her lip, her breath shaking as she drew herself under control. "I don't remember it," she confessed in a low voice. "I guess Dad doesn't know the details himself." She lowered her hand from her cheek, nestling close against Jon in quiet wonder. "I don't remember her," she whispered, her tone full of regret. "I wish I did. Dad always said I looked like her. What was she like?"

Jon recognized the feelings that she was trying to hide and his heart went out to her, pushing aside the feelings of guilt and remorse for an event that had happened so long ago and had been beyond anyone's control. Perhaps he could make things a little better by giving her the gift of his memory of her mother, a memory that burned brightly in his head as to him, it had only just happened.

"She was....a lot like you. Beautiful, kind, trusting, generous. She..." He closed his eyes, remembering. "We only spoke for a moment. I was cold, and she gave me a coat. I held you for a minute while she went to the car. She called you a monster and you asked if I was a penguin."

Vicki listened, letting Jon bring her mother to life for her in a way only memories could. And yet her father had never shared his memories of her mother, the loss too keen, too painful for him to even try. She hugged warm to Jon's side, smiling at the memory he built in her mind as a quiet laugh escaped her lips. "She made quite the impression on you, didn't she?"

"I didn't talk to her long, but..." He opened his eyes, banishing the vision of her drowning mother from his head. "You're a lot like her, I think. She loved you, I could tell. She would have been proud of you, Vicki," he told her quietly, unsure what else to say. It had only been a moment, and the moment was gone, lost forever in the fabric of time. "I tried to tell you in the meadow."

Mentioning the meadow brought another soft snort of laughter to Vicki's lips, her smile warming, deepening, as they moved away from the darkness of that loss and the memory she didn't share. "I wouldn't have listened," she assured him, tipping her head back to look into his eyes tenderly. "I was so sure you were something magical and special, this full grown man who appeared out of nowhere in my special spot. I came back out after dinner, you know, just in case you were there." She laughed again, rolling her eyes. "I practically lived in that meadow for a year afterward, just in case."