5 February 1960

Luck was on Jen's side.

As she snuck past the opening in the wall between the corridor and the kitchen she caught a glimpse of the man who had so startled her, and was relieved to discover that he was facing the sink, his back turned towards her. Training and instinct kept her steps light and silent, the gun steady in her hands, and her gaze was sharp, taking in the millions of tiny details that assaulted her as she went. The kitchen decor was strangely dated - well kept, but all vintage, a slice of history preserved. A strange sight, to be sure, but no more or less confusing than anything else she'd seen so far. The man himself - now muttering grumpily while he scrubbed at a pan in the sink - was a different sort of problem altogether.

He was huge.

Significantly taller than Jen herself - though that wasn't much of a feat, everyone seemed to be taller than she was - he was broad through the shoulders and heavily muscled. He wore a pair of black slacks and a wine-colored cardigan, but his clothes fit him well and the movements of his body spoke of a latent sort of power Jen wasn't certain she could overcome all on her own. But the element of surprise was on her side, and she had the gun - it wasn't loaded, but he didn't need to know that - and she was certain that however strong he was she would be quicker. He could punch harder than she could, but he'd have to catch her first.

As she approached she decided not to rush him; she needed answers more than anything else, and perhaps the gun would be sufficient to keep him still, and make him talk. Perhaps he could be an ally, eventually. The window over the sink looked out into the world beyond and there was a door in the far left corner of the room; if he proved to be troublesome perhaps she could sprint for that door, slip from his grip and make a bid for freedom. If he moved too quickly she could simply retreat; she'd already found one exit this morning. She had a plan, and it was time to act.

"Freeze," she said loudly and clearly as she stepped into the kitchen, using her most authoritative, dangerous voice. She must have looked ridiculous, in that pink nightie, with her hair caught in a net, holding that gun out in front of her, but her arms were steady and her expression was deadly serious, and she hoped that this man would be wise enough to overlook her strange appearance and heed her warning.

Of course he didn't bloody freeze; he spun on his heel, and visibly startled when he caught sight of her.

"Jean?" he asked. He sounded dreadfully confused, and his face was a perfect picture of worry. He was a handsome man, fifty years old or thereabouts, with a well-trimmed beard, and his neat hair was slicked back in a style that seemed to go with the rest of the house, fifty years out of date and yet pristine, still.

"Stay where you are," Jen said sharply when he started to take a step towards her. The man's blue eyes flickered from the gun to her eyes and back again, but he remained where he was, and lifted his own broad hands in a gesture of surrender.

"What's this all about, Jean?" he asked her gently. Jean, he kept saying, not Jen. Close to her name but not close enough. Perhaps they'd been introduced before, she thought, and he'd misheard her. Then again perhaps she was not the only person in this house who had gone mad.

"Where's the phone?" she demanded. If she could just ring Nick, she had the feeling that everything would be all right. She'd memorized his number ages ago, could recite it off by heart, and if she could only hear his voice he could tell her what was happening, could tell her what to do, could come and collect her. He couldn't do anything about the wrinkles on her face or the color of her hair, but she had decided to tackle one insurmountable obstacle at a time, and the first order of business was clear in her mind. Get to Nick.

"The telephone's just there, Jean," the man said, gesturing towards the counter to her right. "Where it's always been."

The slow, careful way he spoke, and the insinuation that she ought to know already something she couldn't even guess at grated on her nerves, but she didn't bother with a rebuttal. Jen sidestepped towards it, crab-like and anxious; she didn't want to take her eyes off that hulking man for a moment. As long as she was pointing the gun at him, as long as he was heeding her words, she felt in control; the moment she let her guard drop that illusion of control would vanish, and she would be lost.

At the countertop she spared a moment to glance at the phone, and frowned.

"A rotary phone? Is this some kind of a joke?"

"Is there...is there any other kind, Jean?"

He kept repeating that name, Jean, as if he thought the sound of it might shake her back to her senses, but it all did was frustrate her. She didn't know who Jean was and she didn't bloody care; she just wanted to go home.

"Don't move," she told him. Everything else in this house looked straight out of 1960, so she supposed she ought not have been surprised by the phone, but she was, just the same. Where did someone even find an old phone like that these days? Her grandmother had had a rotary phone, and Jen remembered how to use it from the hazy days she'd spent with the woman in her own youth. With the gun held tight in her right hand she began to dial with her left, trying to keep an eye on the man. To his credit, he stayed right where he was, but the worry in his eyes left Jen's nerves on edge.

Carefully she ran off Nick's number, but nothing happened. The line made a strange clicking sound, but then silence filled her ears, and Jen's frowned deepened. She set the received down, took a deep breath, and then dialed 000. No joy. Neither number had worked, and neither Nick nor emergency services were coming to her aid.

Shit, she thought. What now? Maybe it was purposeful; maybe the phone wasn't connected to the line at all. Maybe it was just for a show, a decoy meant to distract her, and keep her trapped in this house.

"Who are you trying to ring, Jean?" The man asked her gently, evidently noticing that her attempts at dialing out had failed.

"The police," she said shortly. The phone was a bust, so she turned her full attention back to the stranger who was still watching her so closely, his eyes wide and unblinking. If she couldn't contact the outside world, he would be her best bet for salvation. If only he would tell her what she needed to know.

"Why do you need the police?"

"Hey, Doc," a voice called out suddenly behind them, and Jen and the man both turned their attention to the doorway, both of them aghast as a handsome young man with dark hair and an easy stride came marching into the kitchen. He wore a policeman's uniform but it was all wrong; it was as dated and strange as everything else in the house. He seemed comfortable enough, walking through the house as if he belonged there, and seemed to have spoken before he realized he'd walked into the strangest hostage situation Jen had ever been a part of.

"Is there anything to…"

His voice trailed off and he stopped in his tracks as he caught sight of them, the man with his hands raised and Jen holding a gun on him. The expression of sheer stupefied disbelief on his face might have been comical had Jen's circumstances not been so dire. It was two against one, now, and Jen's gun was empty. Her chances of making it through the morning unscathed seemed to be shrinking by the second, and tension coiled within her. The young man blocked the exit closest to her, but perhaps if she sprinted across the kitchen she could beat them both, and then -

"Everything all right, Mrs. Beazley?" the young man asked her in a low, calming sort of voice. It was exactly the same tone Jen herself would have used if she were facing some lunatic out on the street and trying to talk them down. And wasn't that interesting, she thought, that he reacted as a policeman would, that he directed his attention to her, and not the man on the other side of the kitchen. That outfit must have been a costume of some sort, but he was playing his part very well, and the worry on his face seemed genuine enough.

"Oh, we're perfectly fine, Charlie, nothing to worry about," the man in the cardigan said, trying and failing to sound light-hearted. "Mrs. Beazley was just helping me work through some questions with our most recent case. There's no breakfast this morning, I'm afraid. You may want to stop in at the cafe on your way to the station."

Something unspoken seemed to pass between the two men as they looked at one another. It was clear to Jen from the tension that hung in the air that this Charlie didn't believe a word he'd just been told, but he likewise appeared to recognize that nothing good would come of his asking further questions. Whoever they were, these two seemed to trust one another, to know one another well, and Jen was left feeling more strange and out of place than ever. The younger man nodded, almost to himself, and began to retreat.

"I'll do that," he said, backing slowly out of the room. "You ring me if you need anything, Doc."

"I will, Charlie, thank you."

Jen listened to the sound of the young man's steps crossing down the corridor, the front door opening and closing behind him, and then she was, once again, alone with a stranger.

"You frightened him," the man in the kitchen said.

"I frightened him?" Jen snapped. Fear and anger and frustration made for a dangerous combination, and she felt herself right on the edge of flying apart all together. None of this made any sense, and she hated feeling so vulnerable, so lost. So alone.

"Jean, I can see that you're upset, and I want to help, I do. Why don't you put Christopher's gun down, and come and have a seat, and I'll make us both a cup of tea, and we can talk about it?"

"Christopher?" Jen repeated. Jean, Mrs. Beazley, Christopher, Charlie, Lucien - it came back to her suddenly, that she'd heard the man call himself Lucien when he'd been muttering about making a mess in the kitchen - none of those names meant anything to her, and the not knowing was about to drive her out of her mind.

"Yes," he said, very softly. "That gun was Christopher's, Jean. You want to be careful with it, yes? I know it's very special to you."

"Is it?" Jen asked, looking down at the gun in confusion. It was just an ordinary pistol, old-fashioned but well-kept. There was no inscription, no insignia, nothing special about it at all.

The expression on Lucien's face was one Jen couldn't name; it looked like sadness, but it looked like terror, too, as if the ground had just shifted beneath his feet, same as it had done to her. He'd suggested a cup of tea, and the offer seemed genuine enough to Jen. Maybe he did honestly just want to talk; maybe if she set the gun down they could speak freely to one another. Maybe he wouldn't hurt her. To put that gun down would require her to trust him, this stranger whose body was so powerful but whose eyes were so kind. Could she afford to do that? Could she afford not to?

"I will put it down," she said slowly, "if you will sit down with me and tell me just what the bloody hell is going on here."

Surprise flickered across his face, perhaps at her choice of words, but he did not hesitate. "I will," he said. "I promise."

"Right."

Slowly, very slowly, Jen approached the table, and the man did the same, taking one step for every two of hers. They settled into their chairs in unison, at opposite ends of the table, staring one another down all the while, and then Jen made a show of laying the pistol on the table in front of her.

"Thank you," he said, apparently relieved. "Now. Do you want to tell me what's happened?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Jen ground out from between clenched teeth. "Where the hell am I, and how the hell did I get here?"

"Do you mean you don't remember?"

Jen shot him a baleful look.

"No, of course you don't," he amended quickly. "Well, you're in Ballarat. This is my house - our house."

"Our house," Jen repeated in confusion. If anything, his response had given her more questions than answers. This house wasn't hers; she was certain she'd never been to this place before in her life. But if it was our house, why hadn't he said that to begin with? Why the hesitation? And then, beneath that, a million other questions swirled through her mind. She would have to choose one to begin with, and so she chose the one that bothered her most.

"Who is Mrs. Beazley?" They had both called her that, Lucien and Charlie, but she'd never met anyone called Beazley before.

Lucien looked at her curiously, and then smoothed his palm over his short hair in a nervous sort of gesture.

"I think the better question might be who are you?"

He thinks I've gone mad, Jen realized suddenly. Whoever Jean Beazley was, this man thought Jen was her, that she had, somehow, forgotten herself. He had delivered his words gently, but the insinuation remained the same. She was meant to be Jean, but she was someone else instead, and he didn't appear to understand it any more than she did.

Unless he's playing games with you, she thought. That boy, Charlie, he might be in on it. He might be deliberately trying to make you feel insane. If he was, he was doing a fine job of it.

"I'm Detective Jennifer Mapplethorpe with the Victoria State Police. I work Homicide in Melbourne."

It reassured her somewhat, saying it out loud. I'm Jennifer Mapplethorpe, and I have not gone mad, and I have not forgotten myself, no matter what's become of me. If she concentrated she could bring it all back, not just the memories of the previous day, the shooting and the silence in Nick's car, but everything that had come before it. Her mother, her father, Matty and Duncan and Rhys and Allie and Wolfie and Waverly and Jarvis, the academy, the day she'd made detective, the day she'd agreed to work for SIS; all of it was there, still, an entire life she had not forgotten, could not ever forget, and the knowing gave her strength. Across the table from her the man drew in a sharp breath, clearly startled by her response. As if he had expected confusion, and been thrown by her certainty. His mouth opened and then closed again, as if he could not quite find the words to express himself. His hand reached absently for his hair again, and he leaned back in his chair. For a moment he watched her, and then he expelled a great breath and leaned forward again. His obvious agitation rattled her; either he was the finest actor she'd ever seen, or he was genuinely befuddled by her words.

"Well, Jennifer - if I may call you Jennifer." She nodded once, shortly, and then he continued. "It's a pleasure to meet you. But I have to say, I've never heard your name before, and I know for a fact there are no women detectives in Melbourne, and you...you look precisely like my housekeeper, and you're wearing her clothes."

"Your housekeeper," Jen repeated faintly. "What bloody year is it?" The nightdress, the clothes she'd seen upstairs, the rotary phone, no women Detectives; what kind of game was this man playing? It had been a rhetorical question, really; she didn't actually expect a response. Of course plenty of wealthy people still had housekeepers, live-in help to keep their homes running smoothly, but this man didn't look particularly rich, and there was nothing particularly fancy about this house. As for the rest of it, maybe he was just an odd duck. Maybe he was something worse.

"Why don't you tell me?" he asked curiously. "Do you know the date?"

Jen thought for a moment; when she'd gone to be the night before it had been Thursday. And that meant today was -

"Friday, the fifth of February, 2010."

"Interesting," Lucien mused, mostly to himself. That hand of his reached to rub absently at his beard; does he never sit still? Jen asked herself in agitation. What she wouldn't give to have Nick with her instead, quiet, steady Nick who made perfect sense of everything. It would have been so much easier to bear if only he were there.

"It is Friday, the fifth of February," he said after a moment. "But the year is 1960."

"Oh, what the fuck?" Jen said before she could stop herself.

At the other end of the table Lucien looked as startled as if she'd slapped him.