AN: This is a story I found sneaking around on my computer. I wrote it ages ago to take up the time on the holidays, so I'm sorry for the jolting sentences. When I found it it reminded me of Hiro. This is written in a girl's perspective, so it's an OC who can also time travel. He surely can't be the only one with that power.

Tempus Fugit

Time Flies

Life was good. I had the radio blaring and could glimpse the TV on in the corner of my eye. I hopped out to the kitchen in high spirits. The fire was blazing merrily in the lounge room next to it. I made a sandwich and sat on one of the cosy chocolate brown couches. I started eating, watching the TV and sitting back in the chair getting nice and warm. There was a thunderstorm brewing outside and suddenly everything went black. I closed my eyes and flinched when the thunder and lightning struck. Slowly I began to smell something that shouldn't have been in the house. I sneezed all of a sudden and smelt my surroundings again. Maybe something had come in off the street – it definitely smelt like dust. I opened my eyes to a heavily beaten track.

There was a cart trundling past with bales of hay on its heavily laden back. I stood up, brushing the dust off my jeans as I looked around. I stared at my surroundings strangely, trying to recall if I had seen anything like this on a movie or in a book I was reading that might have made me imagine this. My curiosity roused, I looked around at the people milling about the streets. I picked out a woman in the crowd that didn't look as unfriendly as the rest of them, and went over to her. She was dressed in a long brown dress, much like those worn by the 17th century women in America, with a bonnet on her head, though it was not a first class one.

I rushed up to her, 'Excuse me, but do you know what year it is? And why are you wearing that?' I thought this might be a getup of some kind, but then the woman replied with a fearful look, while backing away slowly.

'Why its July 1666. And I don't know what you're dressed in,' she told me, looking at my own dirt stained jeans and bright pink top, 'but this is what every woman in Salem wears. Now stay away from me you shameless wench.'

She hurried away quickly, shooting back suspicious glances in my direction. I stared at my clothes, and then at everyone else in the crowd. My mind then grasped the fact. The woman had said that this was Salem, the witch hunting capital of the world. I stared at my own clothes in horror. If I didn't get out of these soon, and someone saw me, I could be burned as a witch if someone even had the slightest inkling that I didn't come from around here. I quickly hurried over to the first house that I saw and went behind the building. There were no clothes hanging out to dry though, so I looked toward the next house. Luckily for me, it was washing day for these people. I looked around the corner making sure that no one was watching me as I snuck up to the washing line and grabbed a dress. I pulled it on over my other clothes and walked out to the street without looking back so no one would be able to connect me with the crime.

The dress that I had stolen was a long brown one, much like the one that the woman that I had been talking to was wearing. As I was walking down the street trying to decide what I was going to do and felt everyone surge past me, heading towards the opposite direction. I turned around and followed them until I could smell something familiar to me from the long hours in the lounge room spent beside the fire. Burning! I pushed my way past the people so that I could see what was happening, even though in my gut I already knew. In the middle of the town square a young woman stood tied to a stake on a flickering stand of logs with guards surrounding her, cutting off every avenue of escape. I was witnessing the kind of 'witch' burning that Salem was so famous for. Once there was nothing left but the charred corpse, people lost interest and went back to their daily chores. I had fled when the flames first began to lick at the fated woman's body.

I had to get out of here. If I were trialed as a witch I would be done for. There would be no getting back to my time and home. I decided then and there that I would find a way back. While walking around after the burning, trying to calm my nerves before I shrieked so that the whole town would hear me, I had noticed a small bakery. I would have to earn my keep if I were to stay out of the streets long enough so that I could figure out a way home. I went inside and looked around the place. The shopkeeper selling the rolls and pies looked a bit harried, trying to be everywhere at once. I knew that this was an opportunity that I could not pass up. I waited until he finally had a free moment and suggested to him that he could use more help around the place. He smiled wanly and welcomed me in. He showed me my room and the kitchen where the staff and owning family had their meals.

I had to keep a low profile so that people did not notice that I wasn't from around the area, and that I had never been in the town until a few days ago. Privately I had begun to realise that this of course was not a dream. No dream I had ever had had ever gone on for this long. I knew that I should be stressing immensely about this type of thing, but felt strangely calm. My work in the bakery helped to calm my nerves, and after I discovered that I had a flair for cooking I very rarely thought about trying to get home. Maybe coming here hadn't been as bad as I had originally thought.

I had been working for several days and the only bad thing about it that I could say slightly bothered me were the lodgings. They were definitely not what I was used to. At home in 2006 I had a large, cushiony bed with a nice warm doona and blankets draped on top of it. Here at the bakery though, I had a hard pallet to sleep on with only a few homespun sheets to go on top. The food that we ate came mostly from the bakery so that was quite nice. At home I just ate microwaves meals, so it was a very good change. Everything was going as planned and it didn't look as though anyone recognised me as the same girl that had turned up in a pink top and pants from out of nowhere. I was also able to sneak off at night to try to search for a way home.

***

One day a slightly balding man came in to the shop. He must have regarded himself in quite high esteem, as you could smell the haughtiness exuding from his every pore. Here was not a man to be trifled with, as you could tell that he held a lot of power in the town. I had come out from the back of the shop, as I had wanted to see what was going on. He pointed at me and said one word – Witch! He came up to me, ducked under the counter and pulled my hands behind me, pushing me towards the front of the shop and the door. I didn't know what he was going to do, so I had not struggled. I twisted a bit in his grasp and he gripped me tighter. It was hopeless to try to escape now.

In behind him came another man, though you could tell that this one was not a strong man by the way that he hung his head and continually wrung his hands repeatedly. He stooped and avoided my piecing glares at him.

'What's happening!?' I screamed at him. I needed answers now!

As soon as the timid man said, 'Yes, that's her,' at the questioning nod of the other man in my direction, I knew. It was the man from the other bakery just across the road. He had come in a few times and asked how our business was going. The owner had proudly showed me off and said that since I had come to his shop, the rate of customers coming had increased dramatically.

I was taken, screaming, to the centre of the village where the other girl had met her fate. In front of me I saw the platform of dead wood and smelt the pitch and oil, all ready to go for another burning. The man holding me took me up to the top of it and tied me to the stake in the middle. He left then and let the timid man take up the stand. He started to address the steadily growing crowd.

'Ever since this girl has come to this town from wherever she came from, my business has lost customers and has been steadily dying. She has used her magic on me and my shop to make it happen. She should be burned as a witch!' As he had been speaking, he had been growing in confidence, completely believing what he was saying. At this last statement, which he yelled out he stood up tall and proud.

I heard several voices coming from the crowd, all clamouring to condemn me.

"Goody Jones has lost her baby!"

"Goody Brown has lost her pig, and its' piglets!"

Everyone from the town yelled agreement with them, and I knew I was damned, even as the chant, 'Witch! Witch! Witch!' was shouted from everyone. Even though I knew this, I tried one last futile attempt to prove my innocence.

'What he is saying is true, but that is because the cooking at our bakery is better than yours, not because I have bewitched you and your bakery.'

'That is because you have employed magic to help yourself to cook that well. No mortal woman can cook like that.'

As he had been talking, the guards had been coming towards me bearing lighted torches. When they were about to set fire to the platform I looked directly at the man who had caused me this anguish. I glared at him with hatred while yelling out, 'You shall never beat me! Not in this time or any other!' And with that I vanished into thin air right in front of the startled villagers eyes.

I was back at 'home'. The fire was blazing merrily in front of me, with the TV and radio still on. I looked down at the sandwich next to me just as I had left it. I looked back at the memories of the man who had nearly been the death of me once again. I untied the rope from around my hands, which still bound them and sighed in anger. I hated him. I had hated him from the first time that he had me tried as a witch in my home village so long ago. If only he had known the truth. I suppose that wouldn't have mattered to him in any case. The powers that I knew existed in me were not witchcraft, though I did not truly know how they worked. I knew that I would have to defeat him once again, but this time it would be my turn to bring him to a time which I favoured.

The End

Tempus Fugit

AN: Sorry about the witchcraft. I didn't know how to fit in that they were powers that the Heroes have. How do you explain that to a person born in the time where anything different was hated and the person burnt?