Strawberry Dreams


The rush of air came through suddenly in the main hangar of the bunker. The whooshing sound of it was not deafening. It was almost like a vacuum, bending the space time continuum to return the craft back from the past. The sound was now commonplace to those living in the bunker in the current timeline.

Jiya was sitting at the computer when the Lifeboat returned. She tried to hold down some papers in a nearby folder but only half succeeded. She called out to the others in the bunker, "They're back!" Jiya got up to move the large metal step ladder under the opening hatch.

Coming into the hangar was Agent Christopher and Connor Mason followed behind her. The FBI agent glanced at the former millionaire and scientist and asked, "Everything ready?"

"All up to speed," Connor said in his pristine English accent. "Perhaps we should allow Lucy to freshen up first."

Agent Christopher gave him a wry look. "Connor, I don't think she'll care what she's wearing . This is too important to her."

"Which is why we're taking the secret agenda approach instead of the direct one."

"We've been over this. It's best that we ease her into it first."

"Fine."

They both focused on the hatch to the Lifeboat as it opened. The first to climb out was Lucy Preston, dressed in a simple dark suit and skirt with a small hat. The fashion of the late 30's. She eased down the ladder. Behind her, emerging from the Lifeboat, was Garcia Flynn, Wyatt Logan, and the pilot, Rufus Carlin.

Lucy quickly went up to Jiya, who had already returned to the computer. She asked her with great anticipation for the answer, "Did the atom bombs happen in World War Two? Hiroshima and Nagasaki?"

Jiya started typing in the information and she quickly said, "Yes. Both places bombed exactly when they were supposed to. You did it. The letters to FDR from Albert Einstein were received." Lucy sighed in relief.

Agent Christopher turned to Wyatt and Flynn. "What about the sleeper agent?"

Flynn replied, "Shot him in the stomach before the car exploded. He'll be dead in a few hours." Flynn stopped to think. "Or he's already been dead for eighty years."

"Did you say exploding car?" asked Christopher.

"Affirmative," said Wyatt. "Sleeper tried to kill Einstein and his colleagues with a car bomb with the letters. He used an old tilt fuse bomb. Insurgents used them in Saudi. Recognized it immediately."

Rufus came up and said, "If it wasn't for Wyatt, we'd all be dead."

"Seems you might have said that same thing once or fives times before."

Lucy added, "This time you saved Albert Einstein!"

"And the rest of his friends," said Rufus in fake casualty.

Connor perked up. "They all were there?"

Rufus smiled. "Yep. Einstein. Szilard. Teller."

Connor's eyes went wide. "Oh, to have a conversation with those three."

"Well, I did," said the not so humble Rufus. "I fulfilled the dream of every physicist at MIT. Me and Einstein, we go way back. Spoke to him on his time theory."

Connor grinned. "Oh, great! Wait, how did that come up?"

Rufus gave his embarrassed look. "Well..."

"He knew," said Lucy. "Einstein knew we travelled through time."

"And how would he have known?" Connor insisted.

Rufus said, "We kinda, might have said the wrong thing."

Lucy, the historian, explained. "We mentioned the next set of letters that Einstein would send, also sourced by Szilard. However, those were dated April 1940."

"Oh. Months ahead of their future," noted Connor.

Lucy almost sounded excited. "Yes, but the others didn't catch it."

"But Einstein did," Rufus said. "There were other things he noticed. The fact that our clothes weren't ours. Our speech patterns. Flynn's accent."

Flynn injected, "Sorry, I can't speak American."

Lucy continued. "At least he confronted us without alerting the others. I had the feeling the others wouldn't quite agree with his time theory. Here I thought he won a Nobel Prize for it."

Rufus started to counter but Connor beat her to the correction. "Einstein didn't win the Nobel for his relativity theory. He won it in 1921 for explaining the photoelectric effect. Even then there was red tape to go through with the Nobel Prize."

Rufus told Connor, "Anyway, he knew and I had to explain the physics of our time machine. He asked all the right questions and I answered them. He was fascinated. I showed him a dime I had made in 2005. Of course, I had to name drop a certain Connor Mason on his own time theories. He said they were brilliant."

Connor was speechless. Almost. "Einstein...said I was brilliant. Wish I'd been there with you."

"Me too. But the shoot out and the car explosion was intense. Still, it was a proud enough moment for the both of us," Rufus stated.

Connor asked, "Better than meeting Mark Hamill at Star Wars Celebration?"

Rufus considered. "Different. But no less proud. But, thank you. Always a plus to come back to a timeline where Star Wars still exists."

Wyatt poked his head through and said, "Sorry to interrupt Star Wars and physics speak, but I'm going to see my wife. It's late but I'm sure she'll wake up for me." He left. They also just noticed that Flynn left without any word.

Rufus spoke as if Wyatt never said anything. "Connor, Einstein also said I have great instincts."

"Oh, I see. I've been telling you that for years, which you ignore. Albert freaking Einstein tells you and you act like a bloody hero."

"I'm not a hero, Connor."

Jiya immediately surrendered her seat at the computer to squeeze in and wrap her arms around Rufus. "Yes, you are! But you're my hero." They kissed. Then Jiya announced, "Excuse me while I take my hero away so we can ravage each others bodies." She pulled Rufus away by the arm.

As he was being dragged away, he said, "We may be a few hours."

Conner cried, "That, Rufus, is what you Americans refer to as TMI."

Feeling literally like the last one standing, Lucy said, "Well, I'm getting out of these old clothes. Literally, old clothes."

"Just a moment, Lucy," said Agent Christopher. "Connor and I need to speak to you."

"About what?"

"Let's go into the other room."

"OK, now you're scaring me."

Connor assured her, "Not to worry, dear."

All three moved to a small room adjacent to the main dining and kitchen area. Christopher and Connor stood while Lucy leaned against the opposite wall. She looked as exhausted as she felt. "Can this possibly wait until morning?"

"I'm afraid not," replied Christopher.

Connor began. "Look, Lucy, whether you know it or not, you have changed history multiple times."

"I'm actually quite aware of it."

"Nevertheless, you've never experienced these changes as they happened here. It is a strange phenomenon to actually know that something in the current timeline has changed instantaneously, yet still remember events of timelines that previously existed."

"And you lost me, Connor. What are you trying to say?"

Agent Christopher cried, "Oh, for Heaven's sake. This is what you get when you have a physicist try to explain things. Lucy, the timeline changed for us, oh about two hours ago. Whatever you did in 1939 affected what's happened now."

"What? What changed? Spit it out. Is it my mother?"

"Not quite."

"Then tell me, Denise. You know I hate suspense."

"It would be easier to show you." She moved toward a door behind her that led to another room. She opened it and spoke to someone hidden behind it. "You can come in now."

Lucy waited in anticipation as a figure emerged from behind the door. Female of average height. Looked to be in her late twenties. Long auburn hair that was tied in a ponytail. The woman then looked into Lucy's eyes.

Immediately, Lucy lost her breath. In an instant she was experiencing a hundred emotions all at once. She didn't know which one to feel first. She started to breath, finally, but in harder bursts. The next stage was the whimpering that turned quickly into sobs. Lucy put her hand to her mouth. Tears soon ran over her fingers as she cried harder. The weight of emotions became too heavy for her to bear. Her knees buckled and she fell to the floor.

The woman finally spoke, tears in her own eyes. "Hey, sis."

Lucy knew her name. She made it a point to remember it and everything else about her. Her name barely escaped her lips at the moment. "A..A...Amy?"

"Yes." She went over with tears in her own eyes to Lucy and bent down to hug her.

Lucy held Amy tightly in her arms. She gasped at the feel of her sister in her presence for the first time in more than a year. She didn't care about history or time travel. It was all in the past. This is now. She no longer needed to search for her sister in time. She was right in front of her now. Lucy let out cries of joy that she herself did not know existed inside of her.

She separated the hug but kept Amy at arms length. "Is this real? Are you real?"

"It's real, Lucy. I'm here."

"You don't know how long I've been searching for you."

"Well, for me, I've been searching for you, too. You disappeared for months."

"Disappeared? As in...not existing?" She looked up at Connor.

He tried to hide the wiping of his eyes by feigning to scratch his nose. He explained, "Most likely not. If you had disappeared from existence, Lucy, we would know. No, it seems from speaking to your sister for the past few hours, most everything that had happened in the past year happened just as we experienced. The difference, of course, was Amy's appearance."

Agent Christopher shoved a tissue in her pocket. She added, "According to Amy, you disappeared about the same time when Connor's lab exploded."

Lucy filled in the blanks. "That's when we moved in here." She looked at Amy with an apologetic expression. "We were under strict rules to not to leave here to avoid the risk of exposure." She stood up and Amy followed. "I guess you know what my next question will be, Connor."

"How? I couldn't begin to calculate the possible outcomes. It was obviously something you did, or didn't do in 1939."

"Which was two years after the Hindenburg," Lucy noted.

Christopher said, "At some point, Henry Wallace married Carolyn Preston instead of the granddaughter of Irene Doehner. Again."

Lucy gasped and said to Amy, "You do know we're talking about time travel, right?"

"I know, Lucy. It's incredible. Connor here explained it but I didn't believe it until I watched on a monitor your ship appeared out of nowhere."

"Well, we just came from 1939. We saved World War II. Again. There were letters written by Einstein and his colleagues that were sent to FDR warning him that Germany was developing an atom bomb."

"Lucy, stop. You're historing again. As usual."

Lucy chuckled. "Historing. I forgot you made that up. So, bottom line. Time travel! What do you think?"

"Mind blowing. Sis, you have an actual working Tardis!"

Christopher asked, "A what?"

Connor said, "It's a Dr Who reference. Which, I must say, is a much proper reference to time travel than anything Rufus or Jiya have come up with."

Lucy sighed and looked at Agent Christopher. "We are officially surrounded by nerds."

"That I actually knew," the Agent said.

Lucy looked at Amy again. "I still can't believe you're here."

Amy shrugged. "Believe it."

Lucy gasped again. "Do you know about Rittenhouse? About Mom?"

"She's been briefed, Lucy," said Christopher. "We didn't want to overwhelm her too much in one day. More details in the morning."

Lucy perked up. "She's staying here?"

Amy said, "Only for a few days. I do have a tournament on Saturday."

"Oh, right. You're still a Black Belt."

Christopher said, "I thought that a few days here would be safe enough. She won't be able to stay permanently but we'll find a way for you two to communicate or even visit."

Connor added, "Besides, we are running out of bedrooms for everyone we disclose our time travels to."

"She can stay with me in my room!" cried Lucy.

Connor chuckled. "Good Lord, you're as giddy as a schoolgirl."

Lucy looked him seriously. "Connor, the next time one of your beloved family members blinks out of existence, we'll see how you react when they suddenly reappear."

Connor bowed his head and uttered in a low voice, "Touché. Sorry."

Lucy erased her seriousness and blurted with glee, "Oh! You have to meet the team! I've told them all about you. They'll be so happy to finally meet you."

Agent Christopher said, "Lucy, it's late. You just came back from a mission. Maybe it can also wait until morning."

Connor mentioned, "Also, I think the two other couples may be a bit busy right now."

"Yes. Of course. Tomorrow," Lucy said.

Amy said, "Plus, it will give us a chance to catch up. And by catch up I mean you can tell me all about where and when you went time travelling."

Lucy nodded but added, "That may take a few nights." She became emotional again and she hugged her sister again. "Oh, Amy."

"Seriously, Luce? I think you hugged me more today than ever in my life."

"A year without you cured me of that."

Agent Christopher nudged Connor and he got the message. She said, "We'll leave you two alone for the night."

Lucy said, "Yes, good night. And thank you. To both of you."

"You are welcome, Lucy. Amy, good night." Connor left the room.

Agent Christopher went up to the sisters. "I wanted you both to know how deserving of happiness you both are. Amy, Lucy once had me research ways to get you back. And for a long while, I came up with nothing. I started to lose hope. But Lucy never did. She taught me more about family in that act than I could ever imagine. But, it was fate in time that decided that you two belong together. Cherish it."

"Thank you, Denise," said Lucy.

"Yes, thank you," Amy said.

Denise nodded. "You two have a good night. See you in the morning."

After Denise left, Lucy looked back at Amy. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She uttered, "Strawberries."

"Strawberries?"

"Your hair smells like strawberries."

"My hair? Strawber-..oh, Luce. I haven't used that shampoo since I was thirteen."

"Don't care. I still smell them. Reminds me of the milkshakes we used to get at that dairy bar down the street."

"Oh my god, yes. You would have two of them but you still didn't gain any weight. Hated you for that." She paused and said, "I also remember those nights when I was scared. And I curled up to you in your bed. You just held me. And I wasn't scared anymore."

"I remember."

"Maybe I need to comfort you tonight."

Lucy shook her head. "No comfort needed. I'm happy right now. You'll never know how long it's been since I've felt this happy."

"Good. Well, come on, sis. Lead me to your bedroom so we can talk all night. Unless you fall asleep like normal."

"Amy, I don't think I could sleep tonight."

"Too many dreams of milkshakes?"

Lucy considered. "No. Won't need them now. My biggest dream has already come true."

They walked together with each of their arms around their waists.

"So, Lucy, who was your favorite historical figure you've actually met?"

"Oh, that's too impossible to answer. But I did meet Abraham Lincoln."

"Shut up! Abe Lincoln? Who else?"

"Let me change out of these clothes and I'll tell you all about them. Did I mention Ian Flemming hit on me?"

"The James Bond writer? No way!"

The sisters' laughter echoed throughout the bunker.


The End...?