Los Angeles. Present Day.
Sydney sank down onto the carpet next to Alex, where he sat cross-legged, a medical text open in his lap. She put the pile of loose pages down in front of him.
“You’ve finished reading it already?” he asked, surprised.
“It’s compulsive reading,” she said. “You knew that. You set me up to want to read it.”
“I merely said it would explain why you sometimes think you should feel jealous about Taylor, yet you can never figure out why.”
“Yes, yes,” she said quickly. Dismissively. “Alex, you were so close to the truth about time travel, way back then. Why couldn’t you see it? Either of you? It was right there in front of you.”
“In hindsight, it was obvious,” Alex agreed. “Time travel simply wasn’t a concept back then, not even in stories. Time itself wasn’t properly a concept, not to the common man. It just was. It took me another hundred years or so to start thinking about time in that way and only after I woke from a sleep of several days myself and learned I had been walking around, living my life the whole time.”
Sydney grew still, her eyes wide. “When? Where?” she demanded.
Alex closed the text book. “It’s a time and place we haven’t jumped back to yet, so I can’t say.”
“I was there?”
Alex shook his head. “No details.”
Sydney rolled her eyes. “You spoil everything,” she muttered. “You and Veris are a pair. I can understand why Brody had to run away to meet you in England, just to get away from the man.”
“Thank you. Being compared favorably to Veris is one of the highest compliments I could think of.”
“It wasn’t a compliment,” she shot back.
“I know.” Alex picked up her hand. “The more I learn about time, the more I learn how everything is linked, how everything affects everything else. If I hadn’t thought myself in love with Taylor, if I hadn’t worked to remember everything about her, I wouldn’t have been so shocked by Mary’s resemblance to her. Brody would never have met her and learned what Taylor looked like. Nine hundred years later, he wouldn’t have been able to pick Taylor out of the crowd at one of his concerts and kiss her instead of one of the thousands of other fans. Because he kissed her, she and Brody and Veris were united. Because those three got together, I got to meet you and Rafe. I’ve learned to respect the quantum mechanics and not mess with it.”
Sydney sobered. Her fingers tightened in his. “So…no details.”
“Not yet,” Alex qualified. “Not quite yet.”
“Then I’ll have to do this, instead.” She kissed him. “Thank you for telling me about Taylor.”
Alex drew her into his lap and unbuttoned her shirt, his body throbbing with promise. “Yours is thanks I can accept with all my heart.”