November 2, 2006 – Clearbrook, Minnesota

Dana Madsen. That was the name I was going by now, although a few students at the college I worked at had started referring to me as Professor Madsen. It was only a joke, seeing as I was simply a TA instead of an actual professor, but they all found it immensely hilarious for whatever reason and it soon began to stick as my actual title. Even a couple teachers had called me 'Professor' on occasion.

I rented a small one-bedroom home that was a ten-minute walk from the local grocery store and only a twenty-five-minute walk from the campus I worked at. My newspaper was delivered to my front door every morning, so I didn't have to find and pick one up any longer. My neighbors were hospitable, but never pushed when I turned down an invitation to dinner or a neighborhood meeting. They accepted my single lifestyle rather easily, which was a welcome change from the last few years.

With my new identity I decided to adopt a new look, which was something I hadn't considered over my last few moves. My usual unruly black hair had been cut off at my shoulders and dyed a rich brown color, which I found helped make me look older. I also bought a new wardrobe, changing from my usual comfort-over-couture style to a more professional look.

To put matters simply- I was happy with where I had ended up.

Which of course meant something had to go wrong.

One late night after hours spent grading papers on campus, I was walking myself home down dimly lit sidewalks with my mind on nothing in particular. This wasn't the first time I had walked home, as I had never bothered to buy a car when I moved here and taxis were far and few between. This was the first time, however, that I had a woman step out of the shadows to my left with a sickeningly fake smile plastered to her face.

"Hi," she greeted in a cheerful voice, waving with one hand while the other was shoved deep into her jacket pocket. "I don't mean to disturb you, but you wouldn't happen to be carrying any cash, would you? My car ran out of gas a few streets back, and I was just wondering if you would be so kind as to give me a bit of gas money."

Her story was so blatantly fake that I thought she must have been an amateur at this line of work, because the very least she could have done was make up some starving kid if she wanted my money that desperately. I had more than I knew what to do with and if she had truly needed some, handing over a couple tens would have been no problem whatsoever.

I didn't condone stealing, however. Which was honestly a bit hypocritical of me as I had committed my fair share of thievery back in the day, but that wasn't on my mind at that point in time. Instead, I figured I could make hers and everyone else's lives just a bit better if I could convince her that this wasn't a good career for her.

I continued walking until she was close enough for me to touch, and laid my hand on her shoulder. "You really don't want to steal from people," I told her, waiting for the fog of persuasion to cloud over her eyes. "You could get into trouble."

But her eyes never clouded. Her smile dropped into a menacing smirk as she pulled her hand out of her pocket and revealed a small palm-sized gun which she lifted to point at my chest. "I think you're the one in trouble, sweetheart. Unless, of course, you want to fill up my tank."

I faltered, glancing at my hand on her shoulder before returning my eyes to her very clear face. No, that didn't make any sense. All I had to do was touch her and she should have listened to me. That was how it had always worked, so why wasn't it working now?

Unwilling to take defeat so easily, I squeezed my fingers tighter around her shoulder and tried repeating myself. "You should go home."

"And you should stop telling me what to do," she growled, pushing the gun closer to me to remind me it was there- no matter how unnecessary the reminder was. "Just give me the fucking money." When I didn't respond, she raised her voice as her eyebrows knit in frustration. "Are you fucking deaf? I said-"

Her sentence was halted when I removed my hand from her shoulder and paused the time around her. I stared at her frozen form with confusion, raking my eyes over her angry eyes and her tense posture. "Why aren't you listening to me?" I asked with no expectations of her answering. "That usually works…"

I was too curious to simply let this slide. So, I focused on bending the timeline until she repeated her movements in reverse, returning the gun to her pocket as her features returned to civility. When I lowered my hand she dropped her shoulders and tilted her head slightly. "Hi. I don't mean to disturb you, but-"

"Go home," I instructed, pressing my palm firmly against her shoulder. But again, she only pulled her hand form her pocket and abandoned her friendly demeanor.

"I don't think-"

I never let her get a sentence out, repeating the process three more times before accepting that I wasn't going to be able to change her mind. I still didn't want to admit that something had happened to my power, but extended time travel still made me feel nauseous even after centuries of practice.

Keeping her paused until I could get a safe distance away, I gave up on trying to persuade her and simply continued on my way home. She would blink and I would be gone, but that didn't seem like a big deal to me. She wouldn't tell anyone that the woman she had been trying to mug had disappeared into thin air, and even if she did say she saw something odd there was no proof. I doubted anyone would believe her anyway.

I replayed the incident over and over in my head the entire walk home, walking into my living room and sitting down on my couch. I considered every factor, trying to work out why the powers that I had always considered a curse had decided to suddenly up and leave me the second I actually needed them.

"But the time travel worked," I wondered aloud, leaning against the back of the couch and running a hand over my mouth as I stared at the floor thoughtfully. "How the hell does that work?"

I hadn't learned anything more about myself in the small time I'd been working at the college as I'd been started in history rather than science and had no excuse for working in the labs. Not to mention that running experiments on yourself was frowned upon much more than it had been in the early 90's.

I wasn't great friends with any of the other teachers either, and hadn't ever discussed my 'genetic mutations' with them. In fact, there were only two people outside of SHIELD who knew anything about me being anything other than normal.

Bruce and Betty.

It had been a good eight years since I'd talked to either of them, but if I was lucky and they still had the same phone numbers… Of course, they would more than likely be angry with me for cutting off contact but just maybe they would still like me enough to let me ask a few questions.

I tapped my fingers against my cheek a few times as I considered this possibility before finally shrugging to myself and thinking, What the hell? The worst that could happen was I got yelled at or hung up on. Pushing myself off the couch, I went to dig around in my kitchen drawers until I found the old, outdated cell phone I kept with the personal numbers of the people I had been unable to completely disconnect myself from over the last few decades.

I scrolled through the contacts list, feeling nostalgic over better days with each name. I decided to call Bruce first, as he seemed less likely to be upset with me. He had always better understood my need for solidarity and was more likely to be accepting of my sudden return than Betty.

As the phone rang, I rocked nervously on my feet and rested my elbows against the counter, half-hoping he wouldn't pick up so I could avoid an awkward conversation. I almost thought he wouldn't with how long it rang, but twelve rings in the phone finally clicked.

"Who is this?"

My feet stilled over the tile at the sound of his voice, partly because he had actually answered and partly because he sounded so… tired? Cautious? I couldn't quite place my finger on the emotion in his tone, but regardless he didn't sound as if he was doing well.

"Hey, Bruce. It's, uh… It's Sarah. Is this a bad time?" I asked, chuckling quietly while tangling my fingers in my hair.

He didn't respond for a moment, and I almost thought he hung up on me before he spoke up again. "He told you to call me," he concluded with disappointment in his voice. "He won't let me talk to Betty, but he finds you to try and get to me?"

"Wait," I interrupted him. "Who is he? Who won't let you talk to Betty?"

"Don't do that," he scoffed. "I should have known he would do anything to find me… I won't tell you where I am. Tell Ross he'll have to try harder than this."

"Bruce, what the hell are you talking about? Nobody told me to find you."

"Stop lying to me!"

We both went silent after he snapped. I had no idea what he was talking about, but whatever had happened to him had caused him some serious problems. I could tell that much even from the few sentences we had spoken. He was the first to talk again, as I had no idea what to say to him then.

"How did you do it?" he asked in a barely audible whisper, so quiet that I had to press the phone closer to my ear to hear him. "How did you keep running?"

This was territory I had never discussed with anyone, but something in Bruce's broken voice made my heart ache. So I moved back to my couch as I talked to him, grabbing a pillow that I hugged against my chest. "I told you before. I've always been a nomad. It might be hard at first, making friends only to abandon them… Actually, it's still pretty hard. Every time I leave I wish I didn't have to… Why are you running, Bruce?"

"… You really don't know?"

"Like I said," I shrugged to myself, propping my head up on my fist. "I have no idea what you've been talking about this whole time."

"Then why did you call me? After eight years of ignoring me, why are you calling me now?"

"The truth? Because I'm selfish. I've recently had some… complications with my genetic mutation- the one I got from my mom? I never told anyone else about it except you and Betty, so I thought that maybe I could talk to you about it. I don't really have anyone else."

He actually laughed a little at that, though it wasn't hurtful. It was more like a laugh of understanding, like he knew what it felt like to not have anybody. "Yeah. Yeah, I can relate."

"You didn't answer my question," I pointed out, though I approached the subject carefully. He seemed very jumpy, and I didn't want to scare him off by pushing him into talking about something he didn't want to talk about. "What are you running from?"

Once again he took a while to answer, but I didn't rush him. If he wanted to answer me, he would in his own time. "What are you running from?"

Well that was a loaded question if ever I'd heard one. I really liked Bruce, maybe even loved him. I cared about very few people in my lifetime, and when I did it had never ended well for me. But I could tell that Bruce was having the same problem as me, which made me feel like I could talk to him. Maybe not with the full truth, but just close enough for him to feel the same way I did- like a kindred spirit.

Keeping my life a secret from everyone had gone out the window when I'd confessed my life story to Nick, and partially to a few others at SHIELD. At this point, what was one more person knowing a half-truth?

"How much time do you have?" I asked, making myself more comfortable.

"Currently? All the time in the world."

"You might want to sit down."