On the short drive to my place, I keep the talk flowing and focused on which version of COD we should play. I have most of them. Yeah. I went through a WWII phase. I was twelve. It passed, but I'm still fond of the era.

We settle on the most recent. I'm kinda surprised, but kinda not, that she's already played it.

When we get to my apartment, in a two building complex that looks like what it is, jumped up base housing, circa 1974, she looks around, like she's familiar with it, but she waits for me to take the lead.

"Did I not live here?" I ask, as I'm pulling out my keys and heading up the outside steps.

"You did. But not in this building. In the other one," she gestures with her head. "But it would be almost too weird if you had the same unit."

"Why?"

"In my memory, you got here almost a year earlier. It would be strange for your old apartment to be empty that long, like it was waiting just for you."

"What?" Fargo's very short explanation had left that out. Of course we were about to head for earth at a billion miles per hour and hope we weren't going to smash into a zillion pieces when we got here, so he'd been pretty sketchy with a lot of details. "How did that happen? Did I not get caught by the FBI?"

She laughs. One of those short, sharp laughs of hers. "No. You got caught. Same time, same place, same FBI agents as far as I can tell."

Huh. She must have taken the time to check all that out. Interesting. I turn the key in the lock and shoulder the door open. It sticks. The EM shield does a lot to even out the weather, but Oregon is still Oregon and everything warps in the swings between rainy seasons and dry ones.

I flip on the light then turn to watch her face as she follows me in. She looks tense, then her eyes widen faintly in what I'm sure is surprise, then, and this is sort of weird, she looks relieved.

I look around and wonder what she's seeing. Or not seeing.

"So?" I ask, "Is it the same, or different?"

"Different." Her answer is quick and certain.

"How?"

"This is very…," she walks in a few more steps and brushes her fingers along the back of the couch, then looks at me, fighting to hold back the teasing smile that fills her eyes, "presentation ready."

I grin at her. I can't help it. "That is a very nice way of saying bachelor pad."

She laughs then, no mockery at all, and so do I.

"Definitely not so much dark leather before. Or any leather before. Or this coordinated. Or stylish," she says, gesturing around the room. "It's nice. I really like it," she adds with a smile, still looking around. She still sounds a little surprised.

"Thanks," I say. I look around again. Yeah. It's a little stereotypically tech entrepreneur. Tony Stark on a miniscule budget. A little anonymous. But I like it anyway. Clean lines. No clutter. And, like she said, ready for unexpected company.

Early on I learned that messiness seems to work on some women like an invitation to start tidying. The last thing I want a hook up to do, no matter how much I might like her, is touch my stuff. Way too much like marking territory. The only person who gets to do that here is me. So I keep everything clean and locked down. Even in my home workspace, set up in the second bedroom. I'd tried just keeping the door closed on my clutter in there, but that only seemed to turn it into Bluebeard's locked tower or something, and invite sneaking around.

I lead the way to the kitchen, pointing Jo to the stools at the bar that separated the kitchen area from the rest of the main room.

"So what did it look like? My place?" I ask, heading for the oven to get it pre-heating. I'm also wishing I'd figured out a way to get her here before, because talking about my evolving taste in home decorating is providing the most information I've gotten out of her yet.

"It came partially furnished. You never bothered to change it, just added things that you needed or wanted."

"Ah. So did this one. All beige contemporary and light oak and hotel-art. Aggressively inoffensive."

She laughs again, this time in amazement. "How do you even know those words?"

"Prison is mostly very, very dull." Punctuated by short bursts of terror or rage, or sometimes both at once, but I don't share that. "I read every magazine in the library. Three or four times. Even the home decorating ones."

She looks around again, considering. "Is that why this place looks like a spread from Real Simple?"

I chuckle. Only a little self-consciously. How can I not? While it's not like I meant for it too, I do like that aesthetic. Not surprising she sees a resemblance. "Yeah. Probably."

She's looking around again, comparing. I can see it in her face.

"What else?"

"Well. You had more color. When you did add stuff. Reds and oranges, bright blues and greens. Framed movie posters. My favorite was the collection of lava lamps."

"This is a bachelor pad, but when I had a collection of lava lamps it was not?" I can't help being a little incredulous. I mean, mid-century modernism is one thing. But lava lamps?

"You weren't a bachelor. Not really." She shrugs uncomfortably, and redirects back to home decor, "And your style was more 'late-geek' than anything else."

"Right." Framed movie posters. Very sophisticated. I turn for the freezer. "Fargo said we," holy shit, I come so close to saying 'hooked up' but make the save at the last second, "got together right after I got to Eureka."

"More or less."

I pull out a frozen pizza. "I hope the 'Vegetarian Supreme' is okay. It's all I've got."

"It's my favorite."

"Really?"

She smiles. "I'm not flirting. Really."

"And how will I know when you are flirting?"

"You won't. I don't flirt. I suck at it. Also, I'm mostly a vegetarian."

"Well. You will have to learn. Because I love to flirt, and flirting is way more fun when two people do it together. And so am I. Mostly a vegetarian, that is."

"When did you start that?"

"After prison. Trying to detoxify from all the processed crap they feed you. Now just because I like it."

"Prison is the break in your life, isn't it. Before. After." She chops the air with her hand, doesn't make it a question.

"It wasn't, before?" I can't believe that.

She lifts her shoulder. Almost apologetic. "You never went."

"What? How did that happen? You said I got caught!"

"You did. But in that version of Eureka," I notice again how she avoids the word 'timeline' and wonder why, "GD was looking for someone with your skill set in physics. Their talent scout had connections everywhere, even in the FBI. So, when they heard you'd been brought in, the infamous final winner of the Spidaro Prize," she looks at me then, out of the corners her eyes, with a funny combination of teasing and recognition of the significance of the award. I don't know quite how to react, have no idea if she knows why I did what I did, or where the money ended up, so I'm glad she moves on, "Allison arranged for GD to bring you to Eureka."

"And the FBI just let me go?"

"No. If you ever left GD employment, voluntarily or otherwise, the Federal Prosecutor's office reserved the right to resume its case, and the statute of limitations was on hold no matter how long you stayed."

This is – a hell of a lot to process. So I pull on the little thread first. "Physics? They actually wanted me for my graduate work?"

"Yeah." She grins at me. "They did. It was all for science. The programing stuff wasn't central at all."

"Huh."

"Here, they recruited Nick Fowler instead."

"Now you're kidding me." Now I am dumbfounded.

"Nope."

"That idiot has my job?" my voice is getting screechy, but I can't help it. "Nick Fowler?"

"He's not an idiot. I've seen his CV."

"Yeah! He is an idiot!" I can't believe it. I'm more offended by this than by anything else I've learned about all the things they altered by getting sucked into a wormhole and then spat out again. With a hitchhiker. Who changed everything. The fucker.

Not only had I lost two years with Lupo and, oh, hey, been convicted on several felony counts and done time in prison, but that asswipe Nick Fowler, Nick Fucking Fowler!, got my fucking job.

"Oh man." Lupo pushes back and hops off the barstool. "Hand me a beer, Donovan, and put in the game. I've seen that look before and I'm not interested in the rant of the wounded scientist. You promised me a chance to kick your ass because you burned down my house, and that's what I want to do."