Finding Wings

Reich Rose

Rose used Google Earth to get the exact GPS coordinates of the little park near their old apartment, and they flashed into it after midnight the night of that long-ago raid, crept cautiously into the alleyway across the court from their front door, then finally flashed back a few hours to just before the raid. Hiding behind the dumpster, they watched as the three unmarked SS cars pulled silently up and discharged their occupants, who flowed up the two flights of stairs like a malevolent black tide. Into the flat they burst without knocking, engendering a short scuffle with screams and shouts, and then ominous silence. A few minutes later, a bedraggled, roughed-up, still-struggling Pete was frogmarched down the steps in handcuffs, yelling for Jackie until he was punched hard in the mouth to shut him up.

The older Pete turned and looked at his daughter. "You need to step out of the shadows, baby. You have to let me see you. The old me."

"Dad, no..." she whimpered.

"You have to, baby."

Heart breaking, she did as he said, and stepped into the dim glow of the street lamps. The younger man stopped dead as he was being put into the back of one of the cars, staring at her in total disbelief, then the SS man beside him punched him hard in the stomach to make him fold up, and shoved him through the door. As the others piled into two of the cars and left, Rose stepped back into her father's arms again.

"It's OK, baby," he told her over and over. "It's OK. I know the truth now."

A minute later, though, he gently pushed her back. "We need to get upstairs and in there NOW," he said, steely determination glinting.

"Shouldn't we wait till they bring her out?" Rose asked worriedly, and he shot her a grim look.

"No. They aren't going to bring her out until..." he couldn't say the words. "The neighbors said later that they heard her screaming after I was taken away."

The idea shocked her into instant motion. Her Mum was about to be raped, right now. They flew together across the court and up the steps, and Pete burst through the door with Rose on his heels in unconscious imitation of the SS men minutes before - just as a familiar female voice screamed from the back room. Jackie.

Nobody was in the front room. Pete stormed across to their bedroom door and crashed through it as well, causing the two men to jump before they looked at him sourly.

"Vas ist das?" began the one with his pants undone, getting the words out of his mouth just before Pete reached him and dropped him to the floor with one solid punch to the jaw. Then he rounded on the other, who had been holding Jackie's hands above her head, grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room.

Rose ran to her Mum, sprawled across the bed, her clothes in disarray but not yet removed. "Mum! MUM! It's OK, Mum, it's me, Rose!" She reached up and took off her uniform cap, letting her blonde hair tumble down around her shoulders. Jackie finally recognized her daughter and fell into her arms, holding her so tightly Rose thought her back might crack. Not that she cared.

Her Mum was safe. Safe and unharmed.

Pete was still taking care of the two Nazis. When Rose looked around a minute later, one of them was already motionless on the floor, and Pete was kneeling on the other, the one who had his pants undone, grinding his knee into the man's throat as he pounded his fists into his face and head, over and over.

Rose disentangled herself swiftly from Jackie's arms and tore across the room, grabbing her Dad's arm and arresting its forward motion. "Dad! DAD! It's done. He's dead!"

He was. So was the other one, from the looks of it.

Pete got slowly to his feet, panting heavily. He slowly turned and looked at his wife, missing from his arms for all those years, his heart on his face.

"Pete!" she moaned. She'd gotten her clothes back in order, and slowly stood on shaking feet. She took a couple of steps towards him, then stopped again, peering into his face, disconcerted and bewildered.

"You look like you've aged ten years in the past ten minutes!"

Tudor Rose

The woman's scream from above seared through Hannah's brain, and she reacted instantly and automatically. Without even thinking about it, she grabbed her personal mobile phone off the coffee table, punching the preprogrammed emergency shortcut without looking as she raced through her door and up the stairs. She yelled at the dispatcher, "Domestic assault in progress!" and gave him the address of the flat above hers, then thumbed the phone off before he could reply and dropped it in a pocket as she reached the floor above.

The door was open a crack, and she kicked it wide in fury, stepping into a flat filled with run-down furniture and smelling strongly of cleanser. At the far side of the room was a slim man, towering over a woman huddled, twisted where she'd fallen, between an overstuffed chair and the wall, her arms curved over her head in self-protection. The man had his fist swung back over his own head, about to pound her again, but swung towards the door in startled fury when it banged open.

"STOP IT RIGHT THERE, ASSHOLE!" His fury was nothing compared to the incandescent rage coursing through Hannah. I'm not back two hours, and this has to happen. She stalked across the room, ready to get between him and his victim. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a young child peeking out through the cracked-open bedroom door, their face a white slice of fear. "GET AWAY FROM HER, RIGHT NOW!" she went on.

"Who the hell are YOU, coming barging into my place and ordering me around?" He didn't move an inch.

"The one who's stopping you, moron. I said, GET AWAY!"

She'd made the mistake, in retrospect, of getting within arm's reach, and he simply used the same fist to backhand her, hard, across her face. She stumbled sideways – and right into John's arms. She'd completely forgotten him, but he'd apparently charged up the stairs right behind her. Now he bellowed his own rage at seeing this stranger strike his wife, and began to gently push her aside to charge.

Hannah whirled and physically held John back, while she startled all of them into freezing and staring at her with a loud shout of gleeful laughter. When she was sure John had stopped, she turned back and grinned maliciously at the man.

"That... was your biggest mistake, asshole." She touched her cheek and the corner of her mouth, and her fingers came away with a spotting of blood from a split lip. Her grin got bigger.

"What the fuck are you blibbering on about?" The stranger sneered.

Hannah pointed at the woman, still huddled on the floor, peeking out from behind her arms like her son. "She may be too cowed to press charges, but I'm not. And I've got a witness." She leaned back against John, almost casually, but her voice was pure triumphant. "You're going to jail, asshole."

"Like hell I am," he began to bluster, but then was cut off by a new voice, sounding laconically from the still-open door.

"Oh, I think you are." All of them whirled around to see a policeman standing there, large as life, his partner looming behind him.

One of the few times in my life I've ever been glad to see a cop, thought Hannah. "It's OK," she whispered to John. "They're the good guys." He glanced at her, puzzled, but then took her strange turn of phrase for what it sounded like, and stepped to one side to let the guardsmen by, wrapping his arms around Hannah to hold her close.

The lead policeman stepped past them, glancing at Hannah – and she turned her face and pointed to show him her bruising cheek – then peering down at the cowering woman. "Right. Smith, take our jolly boy here into custody. Come along, man, we're going down to the station for a little chat." He stood back and watched carefully as his partner cuffed the man, patted him briefly down, then led him out the door.

Immediately the tension in the room melted by several degrees. The policeman took a step towards the woman on the floor, but she cowered down even further, fear in every line of her body.

"Officer, let me," Hannah said. She stepped to the woman's side, and while she didn't exactly come up for air, she didn't flinch away from Hannah, either. Hannah turned back to the cop. "I'll take her to the women's shelter. You can come by later to get her statement. All right?"

He nodded agreement.

"How'd you get here so fast, anyway?" Hannah wanted to know.

"Oh, we were on our way already. There was a dead line call to emergency from this address." The policeman caught sight of the child and smiled, stepping lightly closer to the bedroom door and squatting just out of arm's reach, unthreatening. "Would that have been you, brave lad?" he asked, his voice gentle. "Were you calling to protect your mum?"

His eyes huge in his white face, the boy – it was a boy, Hannah remembered now - nodded silently.

"Good lad. You did a very good and very brave thing. Thank you very much." He held out a hand. "Can you come out?"

This time the boy shook his head, hard, and the officer sighed. He got up slowly, so as not to startle the boy, and turned back to Hannah. "You'll be OK with the both of them, Miss?"

She nodded, but then he peered suddenly closer, only then getting a good look at her face. She only had a second's warning. "Miss Tyler, isn't it?"

Startled to hear "Tyler" rather than her professional name, it took her a second to react, but then she returned the close look and smiled. "Sergeant Barkley! It's been a while."

He nodded. "Yes, it has. Well, I'll leave this in your capable hands, then." And with that cryptic remark, he turned and left.

Hannah and John stared at each other a moment as the door closed behind the police officer. John raised his eyebrows at her, as if to say "What's next?", but he seemed calm, so she pointed at the boy still peeking around the bedroom door and said quietly, "See if you can coax him out." He nodded and walked slowly over, squatting down as Sergeant Barkley had done, and began talking to the boy in a low, friendly voice.

Hannah, meanwhile, turned around again and knelt down, too, by the woman still huddled beside the chair. "It's all right. Everything's going to be all right now." The woman finally lowered her arms, peering fearfully at Hannah.

"My name's Hannah. I live right downstairs from you. I've seen you and your little boy in the lobby a few times." She smiled warmly, trying to put her at ease. "What's your name?"

"Irina," came the hesitant reply. She seemed to have a bit of an eastern European accent.

Hannah smiled again. "Hello Irina. Everything's going to be OK now. I'm going to take you and your son to a women's shelter, where he can't hurt you." Irina started shaking her head, and Hannah tried to reassure her. "You don't have to press charges if you really can't. I will, though. It would help if you could make a statement about him slapping me, but even that's OK..." she trailed off, as Irina had continued shaking her head, harder and harder.

"I can't..." she almost wailed. "He said..." She stopped dead, biting her lips.

"What did he say?" A pause, but no reply. "Did he threaten to hurt you? Or kill you? Or your son?" She wouldn't have been a bit surprised, but Irina immediately denied it, with a ring of veracity.

"No! He wouldn't..."

Then, hearing her accent again, Hannah gently guessed, "Did he say he'd have you deported?"

At that, Irina's eyes flew wider. She didn't nod, but she stopped shaking her head.

"Irina, he can't. He can't do it himself, and he can't get the authorities to do it. They will protect you, both from him and from being sent back. I know exactly who to call and where to take you, to get you that protection. It's all right. There are programs specifically designed to assist and protect immigrant women who've been assaulted by their partners. They won't send you back. Instead, they'll help you get away from him, so you never have to see him again, and help you start a new life, right here in England, with your son." Stressing the last words, Hannah had laid a gentle hand on Irina's arm as she spoke.

Irina's eyes had slowly gone liquid, as a ray of hope, so often extinguished, seeped back into them. "Truly?" she whispered, not daring to believe.

"Truly." And with that, Irina started to sob in relief. Hannah pulled her close and let her get it out of her system, murmuring reassurances.

When the tears began to slow, Irina pulling herself back together, Hannah eased back, then stood up and pulled Irina to her feet, too. "OK. You'll need to get a couple of bags together, one for you and one for your son, with enough clothes for just a couple of days. And any important papers you have. And medicines. Can you do that quickly?" Irina nodded, and turned towards the bedroom, holding out her hand to the boy and speaking in a foreign language Hannah didn't recognize.

As they disappeared to pack, John picked himself up off the floor, too, and Hannah went to him, impulsively slipping her arms around his waist and hugging him. "Thank you!" she told him, and at his raised eyebrows explained, "for coming to my rescue."

"I don't think you needed rescuing. I'm not sure what's going on," he admitted.

Hannah eased back and gave him a level look. "Next big change. It is against the law for any man to hit his wife – or children – the way he was doing. Or at all, really. Or anyone else, like me." An impish glint came into her eyes, and she poked his chest with a forefinger. "So don't go getting any ideas!"

His eyebrows shot up, and so did his hands, out and above his head – but an echoing glint was there in his eyes. "And is it also against the law for women to hit men?"

"Yes," she twinkled.

John wilted, feigning relief with a huge sigh. "Thank goodness." His arms crept back around her torso. "So what is happening now?"

"Well, I'm going to take the two of them to a shelter – a safe place, where they'll protect and help her, and he can't hurt her any more." She bit her lip, apologetically. "And I'm sorry, but they won't let you in there, either: you're a man. I hate to do this, but could you go back down to our place and wait for me there? I promise, I won't be long – not more than two hours. I'll even bring us back some food!"

"Food would be good," he mused. "But actually, what I think I'll do is go lie down on that humongous bed and try to get some sleep. I didn't sleep at all last night."

"Me, neither," she admitted, then added in a voice tinged in wonder, "Was it really just last night? Was it really just a couple of hours ago that we were about to be beheaded?"

He shook his head, deadpanning, "Feels like about five hundred years, to me..." And Hannah cracked up, John joining in gleefully just a beat behind.

A minute later, Irina and her son came out of the back room, each carrying a couple of plastic shopping bags stuffed with clothes, and the boy clutching a Spiderman doll. Sobering, John leaned over and kissed Hannah on the forehead, murmuring, "Wake me up when you get home."

Byzantine Rose

Rose leaned back in her airplane seat and tried to relax a little. The kids were all settled down at last, and she could take a few minutes to her own thoughts.

It had been an incredibly satisfying five years since her return from the past. The new secular elementary school (kindergarten through eighth year) had hired her on as a teacher's assistant to begin with, since she'd only just gotten her teaching certificate, and assigned her to Mrs. Clarkson, a highly-respected, well-loved fifth-year teacher with over two decades' experience in the classroom. She, in turn, had set Rose to helping the kids in her class who needed a little extra tutoring, as they were in danger of falling behind. Rose sat them down around the circular table in back of the class and started them reading a book supposedly two grades below them, quickly realizing that she'd stumbled upon precisely what was needed: remedial reading instruction.

And that began it. Within weeks, everyone realized she had a true gift for reaching the hardest cases, slicing almost magically through the fog of whatever their individual handicap was and watching the light dawn behind their eyes. She quickly became the school's official remedial reading teacher, and over the years, spread the gift – and the joy – of the written word far and wide. Her name was even becoming know beyond her own school's walls as something of a miracle worker. When asked, though, she couldn't say how she did it. It was as much a mystery to her as to everyone who took a quiet, unobtrusive seat in her classroom and watched.

Her lifelong secret favorite pupil, though, was the quiet, shy little boy hiding a previously-undetected case of dyslexia behind his startling sea-green eyes who, once the mental key was turned, found his natural element in the written word, and was rarely found thereafter without the company of one, and sometimes several, increasingly thick books. (He would often come back to visit her in the years to come, talking about every subject under the sun, and she attended his eventual graduation summa cum laude from the foremost law school in the country with glowing, planet-busting pride.)

She'd been invited this summer to go along as one of the teacher chaperones on the eighth-years' graduation extravaganza: a week-long trip to the holy city of Constantinople. It hadn't taken much urging for her to say yes – none at all, in fact. She was dying to see the scenes of her secret triumph six centuries in the past – not that she had ever once breathed a word of it to anyone. Nor had she ever taken out the time jumper from the box she'd hidden it in, far back in the cluttered recesses under her bed. But for some reason, it just felt right to bring it along, so here it was, hiding under her long sleeved pullover sweater on this long, boring flight across the continent. No way was she going to put it through checked luggage!

At last, the four-hour flight ended, and she shepherded her small subset of rowdy fourteen-year-olds through baggage claim and customs, and out to the waiting buses. Their guides for the week-long stay met them on board, and had the drivers take the (very) long, roundabout route to the hotel, giving them a rolling orientation tour of the city.

The next day, they piled back onto the buses and followed the Pilgrim's Route through town, seeing the major historical sights along the way, and finally – FINALLY!, thought Rose – ended up at the fabled, sacred Gate of Our Lady, known in ancient times before the Miracle as the Saint Romanus Gate; the place where the Angel of Heaven, Saint Rose, and her companion, Saint Jacques, had shone the wrath of God and saved the Holy City from the Infidel Turks. (Rose kept having to smother a giggle every time that line was mentioned, gathering increasingly-irritated glares from the guides and other tourists.)

Then they walked around a corner from the parking lot into the wide park before the gate, and she gaped, gasping. The entire tower she had once stood on top of, theatrically brandishing the sword while Jack had set off his rockets, had been ensheathed in brilliant, shining gold. Not only that, but twin larger-than-life-size statues of the two Angels had been chiseled from the whitest marble and set in place upon the parapet. Saint Rose (no inconvenient resemblance, she noted absently) stood tall, wings outstretched, pointing her eight-foot sword to the heavens, while Saint Jacques, his own wings carefully tucked back but hardly out of sight, drew back his mighty bow, a moment before loosing a gigantic, fiery arrow.

It was all she could do not to crack right up and howl with laughter. I sure hope Jack never saw this. His head is big enough as it is!

Swedish Rose

Rose had no coordinates, and knew it was a gamble, but they decided that nine hundred miles due north would put them in pretty much the right area, certainly saving them the bulk of the hard ride across what could still be termed "enemy country", and they could go on from there. Sadly, they had to leave the horses behind – Rose had no idea if the jumper's field would extend to cover them, and didn't want to try – but Thorsten said they'd be a gift to the owners of the house for its use. As they didn't want to get there too suspiciously soon, they also agreed to jump three weeks into the future, enough time from Charles's date of death that they could have made it the traditional way if they'd REALLY pushed it hard.

Packs once more on backs, holding tightly to each other, the three of them came out of the transport flash onto the cobbled street of a bustling northern city made of wood and brick. Thorsten spun on his heel, studying the view all around, then stopped in amazement, his jaw dropping. "I know where we are! This is Narva!" They were lucky – a few miles more and they might have been dropped into the frigid waters of the Gulf of Finland.

A short, fascinating walk across town to the port, and they found a merchant ship headed straight for the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Even though Narva was officially in Russian hands at the moment, and Russia was officially still at war with Sweden, trade never stopped.

Paul was ecstatic at being on a real sailing ship, the three masts full of sails capturing his imagination and propelling it across the water with the dolphins at the prow. He ran Thorsten ragged as he raced around the decks chattering to any sailor who'd smile at him, and they all did, whether or not they understood a word. He quickly became the crew's temporary, unofficial mascot and pet. Rose smiled to herself as she watched her two "boys" grow closer together, falling into an easy friendship regardless of the vast difference in their ages. Paul was already beginning to look up to and rely upon his new stepfather – although he hadn't quite realized that relationship yet. Time enough for that later.

When they arrived in Stockholm three days later, Thorsten found a carriage for hire, and gave the driver an address. It proved to be a four-story building, the street level full of small shops, with three floors of apartments above. Thorsten's flat was on the third floor, little used in recent years, but still waiting for him, kept clean in his long absences by a woman who came in once a month to dust things off.

"It's not very large," he told Rose apologetically. She stared at him a moment, then burst into laughter.

"Thorsten, it's ten times the size of the place we were living in. We had one room – and in fact, it could fit into this parlor with room to spare."

"Really?" His astonishment quickly slid into a proud, mock-gallant air. "In that case, welcome to your new home, Fru Sjovold!"

She laughed again in delight, then turned rueful. "I really do need to learn Swedish, don't I?"

^..^

She did so rather quickly, actually – well, enough to get by at least.

Thorsten apologetically had to leave her and Paul at the apartment for several hours that first day, as he went to make his report of the king's death to the authorities. He didn't return until quite late that night, exhausted from the endless questions and repetitions of all his knowledge of the events at Stanilesti – and before. Charles had never been very good at keeping the home office informed, and Thorsten's memory, and his little notebook, were thoroughly wrung dry of every detail.

The government was, of course, thrown immediately into turmoil, as they dealt with the succession, and the implications of Russia's collapse in the wake of her own Tsar's death with no heir or any clear successor. A new Swedish army was swiftly thrown together and marched off to press Sweden's claim to her part of the territory, under the command of the most senior officers to be found – not Thorsten, Rose was relieved to hear. He'd given up his commission years before, and could neither be induced nor drafted into returning. (The troops swiftly marching north from Bender under Colonel Svenson finally met up with the main forces outside Moscow for their part in the wrangling, beating the Turkish troops marching in a long line from Moldavia by a scant five days. The third army, from Poland, arrived last but largest, and the resulting three-way fooforaw threatened to turn ugly before the issue was settled diplomatically, with long lines carving up the map rather than long knives carving up people. At any rate, Russia's vast territory was divided into three portions in the west, with the nearly-empty east left largely to its own devices.)

Instead, Thorsten took a minor position in the new, more constitutional government as an aide to one of the ministers, watching from the sidelines as eventually Charles's sister Ulrica Eleanor was voted into the monarchy, then a short time later abdicated in favor of her Hessian husband, Frederick. The years that followed were joyful, peaceful ones for the new – and growing – family, as first one, then two years later, a second beautiful daughter was born. During Ulrica Eleanor's short reign, she handed out titles and estates by the handful, seeking support from Sweden's previously-displaced nobility, and Thorsten successfully petitioned for his own childhood home – gambled away by his inheriting elder brother before his own death – to be restored to him. He also got the title back (a minor one), but didn't care and never used it. He proudly moved his family into the (relatively) small manor house some ways south of Stockholm and retired from government service again, settling into the life of a country gentleman farmer with joy and satisfaction.

And then Elsa, the older of the two girls, got sick.

At first it was the usual childhood complaints, but they swiftly became continuous, and worse. Soon she was bedridden, her frail four-year-old body becoming weak and pale as the sheets she lay on.

The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her, and before very long Rose had had enough.

"Thorsten," she told him one night. "I'm not going to stay here and watch my baby die. These doctors know nothing. But the doctors of my time – of the twenty-first century," she swiftly amended, seeing the hurt in his eyes, "they DO. They CAN help. Please, Thorsten. Please. Let me take Elsa back to that time. Please..."

"No," he replied, utterly shocking her, but then he continued. "We'll ALL go. She's my child, too."

Tudor Rose

A half hour and a taxi ride later found Hannah leaning on one elbow on the front desk of the women's shelter, just waiting. Irina was in a nearby office, telling her story to the counselor. Suddenly, a tiny hand crept into hers, and she looked down beside her to smile encouragement at Irina's son, who, truth to tell, she hadn't really gotten a good look at, yet; he'd been hiding on Irina's other side even in the taxi – and got the shock of her life.

His wide eyes, gazing solemnly up at her from his young face, were a brilliant sea-green.

Barely breathing, Hannah tilted her hand slightly to look at the back of his – and there it was: the Sicily-shaped birthmark.

She twisted around, still holding his hand, and knelt in front of him. "Are you Paul?" she asked, her voice breathless.

He nodded silently. She still hadn't heard him utter a word. Small and slim, he looked to be about four – just old enough to have absorbed the knowledge of how to dial 999 for emergencies.

A reassuring smile crept across her face, and she reached to smooth and tuck in his shirt. "It's OK, Paul. Everything's gonna be OK." He suddenly flung his little arms around her neck, and she held him tight, repeating it over and over. "Everything's gonna be OK."

^..^

She was just finishing up all her paperwork, still standing at the front desk, including her own complaint against Irina's husband, when a familiar voice sounded behind her. "I heard what you did."

She smiled, but didn't even look up. "Hello, Rebecca," she said, sardonically sing-songing the greeting the other had skipped.

Rebecca stepped around the corner of the counter so she could see Hannah's face. Somewhere in her fifties, the sprinkling of grey hairs and the combination of both laugh and frown lines in her face spoke of a hardworking woman who cared deeply about others, while her slightly-worn serviceable suit put her in mid-level management somewhere.

"When are you going to stop wasting your degree and come back to work for me again?" Typically, she plunged past the preliminaries. "You were a GREAT social worker, Hannah – and now you'd be even better, for having been where you've been. You know where to find women in trouble, you know how to reach them, how to speak to them, and get them in contact with the services they need, and they trust you. Come back, baby," she added, coaxingly. "We need you."

Hannah hadn't even looked up from her papers, a knowing smile playing across her face while she heard the familiar plea. Rebecca snorted ruefully, throwing her hands up in mock surrender. "End of regularly-scheduled advert. You know where to find me..." She reached over and gave Hannah's upper arm a quick, approving squeeze. "Good work, baby."

Hannah signed the last sheet, then stood staring at it for a moment while Rebecca walked away, heels clicking on the worn linoleum. Well, here it is. It really is the logical choice. And... I am good. Before she was even consciously aware of choosing, she blurted out, "Rebecca!"

"Yeah?" her former boss paused and looked back.

Hannah slowly spun on her heel, put her hands in her pockets, and gave the other woman a long, rueful look, chewing on her lower lip. Then she tipped her head towards the front door. "Let's go get some coffee."

Celtic Rose

Three years had passed since Rhosyn's adventure with the Iceni. Some days she felt she would burst if she couldn't tell someone about it, but she never did – no one would ever believe her, not without a demonstration of the time jumper, and that was one thing she never felt safe doing. No, the entire thing remained her little secret, even as those around her – especially her mum, Jackie – wondered at her sudden new-found self-confidence.

She hadn't quit her job in that dreary shop right away – though she'd certainly had to scramble home that morning to change clothes, making her late for work and gaining a lecture on punctuality (she didn't quite trust her meager understanding of the time jumper to use it instead) – but had bided her time, making plans. The idea of what she wanted to do had slowly crystallized back there in the primeval forests; the steps weren't easy, but doable. She signed up for evening classes in business and accounting, first – and let Ciaran, her good-for-nothing boyfriend, drift away complaining she was always too busy for him between work, classes and studying. No big loss there, and he was soon happily ensconced in a relationship with a new girlfriend in the next neighborhood over.

She also returned to the dojo where she'd learned akido, rekindling her friendship with one of the masters, Kiersten, informally assisting her during classes and trading that for equally informal lessons. She began showing her the things she'd learned back in the past, never telling where, and together they began quietly working up a new style of self-defense incorporating all they knew.

Then, the day she graduated from night school, degree in hand, she returned to the dojo and made Kiersten a modest proposal: "Let's open our own dojo and teach this stuff to others. You teach; and I'll manage the business." Kiersten stared for a moment, startled, then slowly nodded her head, and a wide grin captured her mouth.

"Let's do it."

They found a suitable storefront not far away, at reasonable rents, and Kiersten plunked down enough from her meager savings to get them started. The next few months were frantic with activity, plastering advertising flyers all over the place, calling schools and organizations offering discount rates. Before long, business was booming, as the word spread of this new style. The White Wolf Way – named for the mystical spirit said to have guided the legendary warrior queen, Boudicca, as she fought off the Romans back in ancient history (which always gave Rhosyn a small, private smile, which she never explained) – was suddenly hot, and competitors were soon attempting to copy them.

But most important to both women, however, was the attention they paid to each individual student, helping him or her face and overcome their personal difficulties, whatever they were. To that end, they were especially proud and attentive to the contract they signed with the local child protective services branch, giving lessons to orphans and foster kids at a steeply discounted rate – as low as they could manage and stay afloat.

Then came the day when a new boy arrived from the nearby orphanage for his first lesson. Rhosyn looked up from her desk to see him hanging shyly around the front door, peering up through shaggy bangs at the other kids uncertainly, and something about him caught her attention. Skinny as a reed, he looked almost malnourished, maybe ten or eleven years old – and something about his manner spoke quietly of past physical abuse. She got up and walked over to him to introduce herself and welcome him to the dojo – and got the shock of her life as he turned to stare at her.

His eyes were a brilliant sea-green. "I'm Paul," he said, desperately trying to project some tissue-thin confidence, stuffing his hands deep into his jeans pockets – but not before she glimpsed the distinctive birthmark on the back of one of them. "Paul Corvantes."

Swedish Rose

Rose did things the smart way, for once. Swallowing her fear for Elsa, she put on some clothes that wouldn't garner her TOO many odd stares up ahead, pulled the time jumper out from the bottom of her dresser drawer where she'd tucked it away so long before, scrolled back through the last two jumps, reversed the settings, and pressed Execute. She landed back in her little council flat, just minutes after she'd jumped out with Paul. His left-behind clothes were still piled neatly on their bed, and she took a minute to steady herself, caught between misty memory and stark terror for her daughter.

She'd remembered the manager's last words to her about the lottery, "They haven't found the winner yet from last Saturday!" She rifled through the stack of newspapers waiting to be recycled and found the day in question, wrote down the winning numbers, then flashed back to the day before the drawing, bought her ticket, flashed back, and calmly went down to the lottery office to claim her winnings – the largest single jackpot in history. Luckily, they allowed her to remain anonymous, having recently changed the rules in the wake of too many horror stories of winners hounded into penurious insanity.

From there, she went shopping for a house, finding an old, abandoned – supposedly haunted – mansion a mile from the best children's hospital in all of England. Paying cash in full, she contracted workmen to fix it up and a decorator to finish and furnish it, then hopped forward through an entire year and a half one month at a time, checking on their progress. At last it was ready, and she returned to their house in Sweden, an hour after she'd left, collected the family, and brought them forward.

Now, a year later, she and Thorsten were sitting side-by-side in the office of the best specialist in Britain, waiting for the results of the latest round of tests. They sat silently, still, each lost in their own fearful thoughts, just quietly holding hands, giving and taking desperate strength from each other. Rose had brought her daughter forward just in time; the dread disease had progressed to a life-threatening stage, necessitating an operation and several risky, cutting-edge procedures and drug treatments.

Rose and Thorsten had spent the intervening year taking turns staying with Elsa in the hospital, and watching the other two kids. Paul – who this time understood that the "Swedish magic" had brought them through three centuries – was way behind his age group in modern schools, of course, so Rose had bought into a homeschooling program for him – the girls were still younger than school age. Thorsten took over the lessons for the most part – Rose suspected he was learning as much as their ten-year-old son.

Suddenly the office door swung open and the doctor walked in. He didn't go to his desk but straight to their chairs, the broad, ecstatic smile on his face telling them the news before he could even speak.

"It's gone. She's cured."

And they collapsed together in relieved hysterics.

Tudor Rose

Hannah walked around a corner in the flat, her mind on something else, and almost ran into John. He was standing in front of the bathroom mirror wearing only a pair of jeans, shaving, and the sight hit her right in the – gut. "Oh, GOD!" she cried, squeezing her eyes shut and whirling around.

"What?" he cried, alarmed.

She took a deep breath, then forced herself to walk across the bedroom to look out the window. "Nothing. I just really wish you wouldn't do that sometimes."

"What?" he asked again, more calmly this time, albeit no less confused.

Feeling she was wading in emotional quicksand, she blurted out, "Stand around half-naked like that."

Silence for a moment. Then she caught a hint of movement in the reflection of the glass – he'd eased the bathroom door partly shut behind him, a true gentleman, then asked around it, "Why? I thought it was all right in this century." She didn't answer right away. "Hannah?"

"It is, culturally. But I still wish you wouldn't."

Another long pause. "Why?"

She sighed, and let out the truth. "Because you're sexy as hell. And you're my husband, even. And I can't have you. Because I'm 'not your type'," she explained, her voice supplying the air quotes.

"Oh," came the quiet response. There was a long silence. "Hannah?" he said softly. "Or... actually... Belle. Can I ask you a question?"

The use of the old name startled her. She'd confessed her former profession to him a few weeks ago, forced by a chance meeting with a former client that she never wanted to recall, let alone relive, and it had been an "interesting" conversation, to say the least. But he'd finally calmed down, and things had returned to normal. Well, normal for them. "OK," she said now, a bit wary, but keeping her promise to always be honest.

"Have you ever... been with... someone like me?"

That threw her. She wished she could see his face. "A gay man? Just gay? No, because he wouldn't be interested. But bi? I'm sure there must have been." She'd also taught him the terminology.

The splashing water told her he had returned to shaving, slowly, obviously thinking at the same time. "But... how would you know? I don't mean you... I mean... how does anybody know what they are? If they've never..."

This conversation was definitely getting odder by the minute. "Orientation isn't about experience, John. It's about attraction."

The water went gurgling down the sink drain. "It's not as clear cut as all that, either," came his cryptic reply.

She'd had enough, and turned around at last to look at the half-closed door. "John? Is that an invitation? Because I will take you up on it." She tried to make it light, but it came out a bit forcefully.

She could have sworn she heard him chuckle. He flicked off the light and came out of the bathroom, then prowled over to loom in front of her, gazing intently into her eyes, positively oozing sex appeal. "No, Madame," he replied, mock-formally. "It's a declaration of intent."

And with that, his mouth claimed hers, and there was no more talking for a very long time.

Well, not in complete sentences, anyway.

^..^

Some time later, they were lying spoon-fashion, Hannah barely aware of her surroundings, sated and glowing. John's lips were a scant inch from her ear. "Satisfied?" he inquired.

"Mrrrowrrr," purred the tigress, and he lifted his head up, startled, then started laughing.

"I take it that means yes?"

"Mrrrressss."

He laid back down, still chuckling. "You make the most interesting sounds..." He was quiet for a moment, then put his mouth right next to her ear to whisper again, "Better than Henry?"

She instantly burst into helpless, almost hysterical laughter. He propped himself all the way up on one elbow at that, and when she glanced back she could see he wasn't smiling, his eyebrows knotted in concern, not at all sure how to take her reaction. She couldn't speak, but she nodded exaggeratedly, and a relieved smile broke out on his handsome face.

Finally getting herself under control again, she told him, breathless, "No comparison. You are so far out of his league, you're not even in the same sport." She started to roll back over to her side again, but then stopped, shooting him an amused sideways look. "You had it pegged way back on the very first day we met." That confounded him, and she quoted his words from their first meeting in the chapel. " 'Henry, think of somebody else? I thought you knew him.' "

She didn't expect him to shoot instantly back with her own response from that long-ago day. " 'I thought you loved him.' "

She rolled back over and put her arms around his neck, pulling him close.

"Never. You know that."

^..^

The next day she came home from work to find him leaning back on the couch in his now-fading blue jeans, once again shirtless, bare feet stretched out on the coffee table, arms crossed behind his head, staring off into space. She groaned theatrically. "There you go again, being all sexy and stuff."

He grinned at her, and held out one hand. "Come here." His voice was low and throaty.

She went to sit on the couch beside him, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her onto his lap, instead, and began kissing her soundly. She melted into him for a moment, then stiffened and straightened up. "Don't tease me," she implored.

"I'm not," he replied earnestly. But instead of pulling her head back down to his, he went on, seemingly non sequitur. "Can you guess what I've been doing all day?"

She shook her head, bewildered, and he waved a hand towards the laptop computer she'd bought him a few weeks ago, sitting on the coffee table. "Looking at dirty pictures, of all sorts." He gave her a tiny smirk. "Testing myself, and my reactions. And... I think I've figured out what I am."

"And that is?"

"I'm ninety-five percent gay. And the other five percent... is all you."

"You're attracted to me?"

"Very much. But you're apparently the only woman I'm much attracted to." She wasn't sure if this was reassuring or not, and he noticed her discomfort. "What's wrong?"

She chewed her lip for a moment, a thousand stories of gay men leaving their wives after years of supposedly-happy marriage flashing through her mind. "What about everybody else you're attracted to? What if that gets to be too much to resist?"

He shook his head. "Isn't everybody attracted to other people besides the one they're married to? But isn't that the point of being married? To not act on that attraction?" He grimaced, and she could almost see the name Henry behind his eyes. "Well, for us common folk, anyway."

"Is that what we have? A marriage?"

"Don't we? I admit, it took over a year to consummate it, but..." All the humor dropped from his eyes, and he added with frank simplicity, "I love you, Hannah."

She was breathless. She hadn't ever expected to hear him say that. "I love you, too," she whispered, unable to speak any louder.

"Then come here," he repeated, his voice husky again. Snaking a hand behind her neck, he pulled her back down, where no words were needed.