Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"Dad! Mom!" Phil Diffy called out as he came into the house. Phil felt sick to his stomach; he'd had a long day at school, and he hadn't seen Keely since he'd picked up her completed homework from her before the weekend. She had a sinus infection.
"Your dad's not home, Phil," Mrs. Diffy came out of the kitchen into the living room. "But I can help you."
"Okay." Phil looked greenish as he said this.
"What's wrong, Phil?"
"You know how Keely and I are in different history classes at school?"
"Yes." Mrs. Diffy nodded.
"And you know how her teacher is more into self history and mine is into Medieval History?"
"Yes." she repeated.
"Well, he gave their class a project to do over the week, and she finished it and gave it to me to proofread and turn it in, because she is sick." He took a deep breath. "It was a genealogy project. And you know how in fifth grade I had to do one going back to the American Revolution?"
"Yes, Phil. What does this all have to do with Keely's--" Mrs. Diffy put two and two together and wished it didn't make four. "Your genealogies match, don't they, sweetie?"
Phil nodded, and bolted for the bathroom. When he had seen lunch revisited, he sat on his bed. How could it have happened? What were the odds that he had traveled over one hundred years into the past and fallen head over heels in love with his great-great-great grandmother? He remembered now the full genealogical report. He had listed Keely by her married name; records of her maiden name had been lost.
More bad news came that evening. Bad to Phil, anyhow. Mr. Diffy emerged from the shop looking triumphant. "It's fixed!" he shouted, grinning. Phil, who'd been eating his dinner listlessly, bolted for the bathroom again.
"What's his problem?" Pim wondered.
"Pim, just be nice to your brother. He got some bad news earlier and he's not himself." Mrs. Diffy told her. Pim nodded, rose from the table and grabbed a cold ginger ale from the fridge. She went upstairs to the bathroom and knocked on the door. Phil didn't answer; only the sound of retching.
Pim entered the bathroom, wet a paper towel, handed it to Phil, and held the cold soda can to his forehead. Then she opened it, handed it to him, and ordered him to sip it. He wiped his face clean, brushed his teeth, and sipped the soda obediently without a snarkastic remark.
"What's the bad news you got today?" Pim probed gently.
"You don't want to know." Phil turned green again, but calmed his stomach by sipping more soda.
"Look, Phil, it made you throw up once--" Pim began, but Phil corrected her.
"Twice." he said.
"Ew! That's so gross!" she said. "So what was so bad that it made you throw up twice?"
"I found out today that Keely is our great-great-great grandmother." Phil said bluntly. Pim's blue eyes widened.
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
"You haven't kissed her, have you?" the normal Pim was alive and healthy.
"No, but the weird thing is, I want to."
"Ew! Gross, Phil! Way gross!"
"Why is it so gross?" Phil demanded.
"Why? Why is it so gross to kiss your great-great-great grandmother romantically? It just is!" Pim exclaimed.
"But we're leaving soon--you heard Dad--and I'll probably never see her again."
"Good point." Pim admitted.
"How can I tell her?"
"How would she find out?" Pim asked, an I-have-an-idea look on her face. "Unless she suddenly psychic, she'll probably never know! I mean, when did she die?"
"Sometime in 2060, I think." Not think, know. Phil added to himself. Three kids, seven grandkids, one great-grandson--Phil's grandfather Max--and a loving husband, a guy she would meet later in life by the name of Jonathan Willis.
That afternoon, he'd switched onto a new mode on his dad's computer that allowed one to look at news from the present until 2121. He'd accessed the page with his genealogy report on it, and printed it out.
"I have to tell her." he said with finality. "It would be better than keeping it a secret and having to live with myself." He called Keely after telling Pim to leave him alone.
"Hello?" she sounded much better.
"Hi, Keely, can I come over?"
"Phil? Sure--I feel so much better. My doctor put me on new medication."
"Great." he tried to sound upbeat. "I'll see you in five minutes." They hung up and Phil biked over to Keely's house.
"Hey!" she greeted him with a hug.
"Hey." he hugged her long and hard, trying to soak every bit of her into himself.
"Missed me?" she teased, smiling, but he didn't laugh.
"What I am about to tell you is the entire truth, and it has a lot to do with you-know-what." he said, referring to the fact that he was from the future.
"Oh-kay." Keely said slowly. "What is it?" He held up her graded report and a printout of his. She looked at them. "No." was all she could say.
"Yes, unfortunately."
"Any other surprises?"
"We're leaving on Saturday for you-know-where."
"What?"
"And there's one thing I wanted us to do before I left, but I get it if you don't want to."
"Do what?" she asked. "This?" she took a step closer, wrapped her arms around his waist, and kissed him.
From that nanosecond on, they spent every bit of time they could together. Phil wanted to stay with Keely while his family returned Curtis to the past, but his dad insisted that they couldn't risk any more stops than were necessary.
Later in life, when Keely admitted to her husband that he'd not been her first kiss, he asked who had been. "A special guy from high school." she said simply.
And Phil? He returned to 2121, crying the whole way as they passed through 2060. He went to college, and married a girl named Lisa, but never forgot the giver of his first kiss--Keely.