Angela's breath caught in her throat. He looked exactly the same as he had all those months ago when they'd stood together in her kitchen and she'd showed him the note. Exactly the same as he'd looked when they kissed.

He was here.

Ignoring the fact that they were surrounded by a dozen other people and in the middle of a potential time crisis, Angela leapt up and crossed the room in an instant, throwing her arms around Hadley. He held her tightly for a moment, and she savored the feeling of being in his arms again. Something that for the past five and a half months had seemed so far-off and impossible.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Hadley murmured. "Time was so unstable for a while there… I was worried you might end up stuck in the past for a lot longer…"

Angela didn't let herself think about that awful possibility. She just held onto Hadley, memorizing the moment.

An impatient throat-clearing interrupted the reunion, and Angela reluctantly let go of Hadley and stepped aside to make room for two more people to enter: Tida and Marrison. The entire contingent of time agents involved with the missing children had shown up.

Tida cast a disgusted glance around the room, and Angela could only imagine how this whole situation must be irking her and her chronist mindset—the fact that once again, people from the twenty-first century had saved the day and fixed problems that even the time agency hadn't known how to deal with.

I guess we're not as dumb and unsophisticated as you think we are, huh, Tida? Angela thought with a measure of satisfaction.

Hadley walked over and touched a small silver device—an Elucidator?—to the side of JB's head. He held it there for only a second before pulling it away and looking at it. "This reports no evidence of damage or trauma," he said with an approving nod. "No signs of schizophrenia either. It appears that Second really did cure you. He even seems to have set your chronophysiological age back to what it was before you went to 1600."

Angela remembered that JB had spent five years in the sixteen hundreds before Jonah had rescued him.

"So… it really was Second, then?" JB asked.

Hadley nodded grimly. "Second was responsible for almost all of what happened pertaining to the Skidmores' most recent trip through time. It appears his goal was to fix the mess Curtis Rathbone created when he turned sixty-seven adults of various ages into thirteen-year-olds. And—" He glanced at the baby Linda was holding. "He may have had other motives as well."

"Rathbone turned Mom and Dad and everyone into kids?" Jonah exclaimed, incredulous. "I thought Lindbergh did that!"

"So did we, at first," Hadley explained. "The time agency thought that was a fluke; something that had happened accidentally as Lindbergh tried to unlock the Elucidator Gary and Hodge had given him. But it was actually something Rathbone did very intentionally, knowing that everyone would have to be re-aged in order for time to progress normally, and that therefore Second, the only person in the world who knew how to safely re-age adults with no chance of brain damage, would step in and risk revealing his secret. The secret Second didn't want to reveal because it had ended up destroying his entire other dimension."

"So Rathbone tried to manipulate Second—and it worked?" Katherine said skeptically.

"No," Kylin spoke up. "Aside from the un-aging, Second was responsible for just about everything. He just made Rathbone think otherwise."

"What about the ripples?" JB asked. "How much did Second's escapades affect time as a whole?"

Shen was the one to answer. "Very little, actually. All of the Skidmores' time travel was either into time hollows or years in which time travel was already discovered, aside from the event of the three kids appearing at the airport. But since they weren't sent to Jonah's dimension, in which it was crucial for Second to spend the next thirteen years with the FBI, and since nobody other than the kid version of Second saw them, there were no negative repercussions. It appears that Second planned all of this out very carefully."

"Of course he did," JB muttered.

"It didn't create problems that a kid version of Second stole an Elucidator and escaped?" Angela asked, trying to keep up with everything.

"Normally, something like that would be detrimental, but in this situation, it worked out," Ariti replied in her soft voice. "The only places he went with that Elucidator were a time hollow, a hospital, and here. He was the one to give the command for the Elucidator to re-age all the adults, which most likely no one else would have been able to do. And we know where he is now—it's not like he's still whizzing around changing history left and right."

Angela looked again at the baby still nestled in Linda's arms. It was incredible to think that that tiny, harmless infant was a version of the man who'd caused so much destruction and chaos to the space-time continuum.

"So what happens now?" Jonah asked.

"First things first, we're going to talk to each of you separately, to hear everyone's side of the story and make sure we fully understand everything," Marrison explained.

"You're saying you don't believe us?" Katherine protested indignantly.

"We believe you're telling the truth, or at least what you think is the truth," said Marrison. "But there was so much manipulation and trickery involved in this whole situation, it's hard to sort out exactly what's what."

"And since you guys are all civilians from a primitive time period, something that would easily be spotted as a trick by a seasoned time agent might have gone unnoticed by you," Tida put in.

"It's not just people from earlier time periods who can be fooled by Second," Shen said with a frown at Tida. "Here JB was thinking we were the ones who'd cured him, all because of Second's elaborate setup. Any one of us could have fallen prey to his manipulations just as easily. We're just trying to sort out everything as best we can, and we think that it will be easier if we hear each story separately without anyone interrupting or talking over each other."

"Jonah, you can come with me," said Hadley. "Kylin, why don't you take Jordan, and Ariti can take Katherine. Shen, Marrison, and Tida, you can each take one of them." He gestured toward the three Interchronological Rescue employees, who'd seemed to be trying to make themselves as small and insignificant as possible since the arrival of the time agents. "The rest of you can stay here until we're ready for you."

"What about me?" said JB, taking a step toward the door. "I can take someone."

"So can I," added Cira.

"You two won't be taking time agent roles in this investigation," said Marrison. "You'll have your chance to tell your story just like everyone else. We're taking care of the flight risks and the most involved first." He nodded toward the Interchronological Rescue employees and then the kids.

"No one's taking our kids anywhere," Linda said in a steely voice. "We just got them all back, we don't know any of you, and I'm not letting them out of my sight."

"Mom, it's okay," Jonah assured her. "Katherine and I know Hadley, and if he and JB say these other people are trustworthy, then they are." He frowned suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him. "Although how do we know you're not all holograms created by Second?"

"That's right!" Katherine gasped. "Or how do we know you're the real Hadley, rather than just someone disguised as him like how JB disguised Jonah as John Hudson back in 1611?"

Hadely smiled, the familiar twinkle in his eye, and Angela knew without a doubt that it was really him. Second may be able to fake a lot of things, but he couldn't mimic someone's mannerisms so precisely that there would be no discrepancy between the fake and the real person.

"Those are some good questions, and it's smart of you to be asking," he said, while Tida rolled her eyes and gave a loud huff. "The technique you're referring to is called Historical Costuming. All Elucidators are programmed with a database of some of the most notable people from history, of which they can create likenesses for reenactment purposes. For security reasons, Elucidators are programmed to be unable to create the likeness of any person who was born after time travel was discovered. And although Second was admittedly very good at hacking Elucidators, no Elucidator would have all the data necessary to imitate one of us."

JB was nodding in agreement. "It's true," he confirmed. "And as for holograms, even by our time period, they don't have any physical mass. It's possible to make it look like a hologram is picking objects up or interacting with the real world, but the sensation of touch can't be synthesized."

Hadley placed a hand on Jonah's shoulder and Katherine's arm, and they both seemed mollified enough to follow the time agents out of the room, promising their parents that they'd be fine.

Soon the only people left in the room were Angela, JB, Chip, Cira, baby Kevin, and the still-uneasy Linda and Michael. Chip moved over to give further reassurance to Linda and Michael, while Cira poked around Rathbone's office, her face twisted in a scowl.

JB moved over next to Angela. "Thank you again," he said softly, looking a bit uncomfortable. "I don't remember much about our time in the past, but I know you took care of me the whole time. I doubt I'd still be alive if it wasn't for you."

"I'm just so glad you're okay," Angela told him. "And that you're—you again. I was so worried…" She trailed off, not even wanting to put her thoughts into words. "What do you remember?"

JB screwed up his face in thought. "Just bits and pieces," he said. "I remember everything up until we got to 1932—coming to your house, you and me being turned into kids, bringing Jonah to the time cave, our outrageous schemes of putting ourselves in danger to try to get an Elucidator that worked—" He shuddered. "Then I remember that we were going to try going to the night the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, but we weren't sure if Jonah would be able to come with us, because I couldn't remember who he was in original time. Everything after that is kind of foggy and disjointed, like trying to remember a dream." He began twisting his fingers together. "I remember you being there. I remember waking up in different places, and eating meals outside, and being amazed by the fact that we could turn invisible. And—was there someone else with us for part of the time? Some boy around my age—well, thirteen, I mean—with maybe a G or J name?"

Angela grimaced, remembering Tete's imaginary friend "Gerhard," who'd constantly tried to convince Tete that he was guilty of something terrible and that Angela wasn't real. "You had… an imaginary friend," she admitted, the words sounding strange now that she was here in the bright lights of the future, talking to sane, adult JB. "He… it wasn't a good thing."

"Ah." JB nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. "Yeah… I remember having trouble figuring out what was real and what wasn't, and being frightened a lot because of that. I imagine I was very difficult to deal with at times. I'm sorry for all the stress and worry I must have caused you."

"It wasn't your fault," Angela reminded him. "And we did have some good times, at least for a little while."

"Again, I can't thank you enough," JB reasserted. "I'm sure you were freaking out inside, but what I remember of you from that time was that you were a calming presence that helped me not be so stressed out. And, obviously, kept me well-fed and cared for." He shook his head. "I can't even imagine how hard that must have been for you."

Angela nodded, not really sure what to say. They sat there for a moment, the silence punctuated only by Linda and Michael's low murmurs on the other side of the room, and Cira now explaining what sounded like the process of time agency licensure to Chip. Angela glanced at JB, sure he would step in and say something about Chip not being authorized to hear that information, but JB appeared to be lost in his own world, probably re-living what little he could remember of the past five months.

Angela eavesdropped for a moment, listening to Cira explain that there were five levels of certification for time agents, and that yearly recertification tests got harder the further up you went. Then JB spoke up again. "What's really weird is that I now have some memories from my first childhood."

"From when you were actually Tete Einstein, you mean?" Angela asked, switching her full attention back to him. "The first time around, before you became JB?"

"Yeah," said JB, looking down at his fidgeting hands. "Back when I first found out I was Tete, it took me forever to wrap my head around it. Not just because the way it happened was so intricate and paradoxical, but also because I couldn't remember ever being anyone else. Even after we watched the video in the time hollow that showed how everything worked, I kept trying to come up with excuses about how maybe there was a mistake or the video had somehow been faked or something. It was all just so unbelievable. But when I got turned into a teenager again, the Tete memories started seeping in and mixing with my other memories. And then, through all that time in the past when I thought I was Tete… I remember a lot of that first childhood now. It's distant, but it's there. And my mom—Mileva—what a strong, resilient woman she was. I'm glad I have some memories of her now."

Angela tried to imagine what that must feel like for JB, getting new memories of an alternate childhood and trying to reconcile them with who he was now. She could sort of relate, when she thought about the thirteen years' worth of memories she now carried from two totally separate lives, but the situation was different. Her two lives were equally real, equally hers. JB's life as Tete was long ago and far away, something he'd experienced during literally a different lifetime.

Angela's musings were interrupted by Michael and Linda coming over to join her and JB, Linda still holding the baby. "Sorry to interrupt, but could we speak to you for a moment?" Linda asked JB.

"Uh, of course," said JB, startling a little. Angela guessed he'd been wrapped up in thoughts of his own. "Do we need to go somewhere private, or is this okay?"

"Here's fine," said Linda. "My husband and I were just discussing… it sounds like this baby has no home to go to, no family to take him in. I don't know how things like this work in the future, or what your protocols are like, but if at all possible… we just wanted to let you know that we'd love to take him in. To adopt him and raise him as our son."

Angela blinked, and saw her own surprise mirrored in JB's face as he repeated slowly, "You want to adopt… Kevin?"

Michael nodded. "When Linda and I were first married, we always envisioned ourselves having a houseful of kids someday. But we had so much trouble getting pregnant, and when we adopted the boys and had Katherine, we decided to be satisfied with two. Or—three." He looked momentarily confused, then shook his head and resumed speaking. "Anyhow, it's going to take a little while for everyone to adjust as it is—the boys to each other, and Katherine to having two brothers instead of just one. We figured this is as good a time as any to throw another sibling into the mix."

They both looked so hopeful, so excited by the prospect of adopting the infant whose cheek Linda was now stroking tenderly. Did they even understand the full magnitude of who this baby was and how involved he'd been in everything that had just happened?

Did it matter?

"Um," said JB, recovering from his bout of speechlessness. "That's… that's very generous of you to offer. If the situation were different, I'd ask the time agency for an exception to the time immigration rule and see what we could do. But Kevin's not going to stay a baby. He's going to be brought to the time agency and re-aged, so he can be questioned about everything that just occurred, and then—well, we'll figure things out from there."

Angela turned her gaze again to the baby, and tried to imagine aging him forward into the cocky, quirky man he'd been when she'd met him in the time hollow. Or—Jordan had said that this version of him had been a teenager, right? So would they even be able to age him forward any more than that? And if they did, would he be able to access the memories made by a different version of himself, in a different dimension?

Angela was confusing herself thinking about it. She directed her attention back to Linda and Michael, whose disappointment was etched all over their faces. "Oh, that's too bad," said Linda. "Although I suppose it's good that he'll get to go back to his real age. I know I was grateful to be returned to my real age." She gazed longingly at the baby for a moment, then glanced around the upper portion of the walls, as if searching for a clock. "When are the kids coming back? Haven't they been gone long enough?"

"They have a lot to explain," JB said tiredly. "It's imperative that we get all the details straight."

"How long were the kids time-traveling?" Michael asked. "Before today, I mean. Didn't Katherine say something about being in 1918?"

"Jonah and Katherine have been to several different centuries," JB confirmed uncomfortably.

"And why did they do all this time traveling?" Linda wanted to know. "What were they doing?"

JB shifted awkwardly, clearly reluctant to admit that the time agency had needed help from twenty-first century middle schoolers, and that it had been partially because of him that Jonah and Katherine had ended up in danger time and time again.

"They were helping the other kids from the plane," Chip spoke up. "Starting with me and my brother, Alex. We all had to go back in time and resolve the issues created by Gary and Hodge when they pulled us out of time to begin with."

"And what did that entail, exactly?" asked Linda.

"Maybe it would be best to hear all the details directly from Jonah and Katherine," Angela suggested, and Chip and JB nodded, relieved.

The room lapsed into uneasy silence, as they waited for the others to return. Eventually, Ariti returned with Katherine, who Linda and Michael immediately jumped up to hug. "I'll take JB next," said Ariti, and JB sighed but got up to follow her out the door.

It was only a few minutes later that Hadley and Kylin returned with Jonah and Jordan. Kylin, looking disappointed that JB had already gone for his interview, beckoned Cira to follow her, while Hadley gestured to Angela, a strange sadness in his eyes.

Angela followed him out of the room, her emotions a mix of excitement at being alone with him for the first time in nearly half a year, and trepidation at the odd expression on his face. JB was fine, all the Skidmores were back safe and sound, everyone had been returned to their proper ages, it seemed that Second had done what he could to make up for the problems he'd caused earlier on… what was wrong? Had something been irrevocably damaged as a result of these most recent trips through time?

They walked through a brightly lit hallway, much like the hallways at Time Agency headquarters, but with walls that were lined with alternating pictures of historical disasters and happy families. Interchronological Rescue promotional pictures, Angela realized, noticing that the child in the photo labeled ALEPPO EARTHQUAKE 1138 was the same little boy being hugged by beaming parents in the picture next to it. Looking at the pictures helped her focus on something other than her anxious thoughts.

"Where are we going?" she asked as Hadley turned down a new corridor.

"To one of the employee offices," he replied. "Doreen and Liam and Markiel told us how to get in, and it's safer than transporting everyone to Time Agency headquarters or to a time hollow while we're still trying to figure out exactly how everything stands."

Angela's uneasiness increased. "So everything hasn't been resolved yet?" With a jolt, she realized what the remaining problem could be. "The other kids! Are they all okay? Have they all been rescued from wherever they were being held?" She'd assumed that Chip's reappearance meant that the other thirty-four children had been returned to their twenty-first century lives as well, but in the midst of the chaos surrounding the Skidmore family, Chip hadn't had the chance to explain his side of things.

"The other kids are all fine," Hadley assured her, turning right and opening the door to a small office that was significantly less grandiose than Rathbone's. "They were remotely zapped to a time hollow the morning of November 21 in your time, as I think you know. Gary and Hodge intended for Lindbergh to knock them out and put them on a plane that would meet up with one of the versions of the plane from the airport in 1999. Thanks to you and Jonah, that plan was interrupted, and we were able to rescue them from the time hollow and send them back to the twenty-first century. Several of them are going to have to deal with major life changes as a result of the time streams merging, but they're all safe and alive, and Gary and Hodge are no longer a threat." He sat down on the desk in the office, and motioned for Angela to take the chair.

"What do you mean, they're no longer a threat?" she asked, sitting down. The chair was more comfortable than anything she'd sat on for a long time. "What happened to them?"

"After Jonah got on the plane to stop Lindbergh from carrying out Gary and Hodge's plan, he ended up giving the Elucidator to Lindbergh, to win his trust and allow Lindbergh the opportunity to conduct his own DNA test and get whatever proof he needed to see that Jonah really wasn't his son. When Lindbergh saw that the results were negative, he realized that Gary and Hodge had been lying to him all along, and… he decided to exact some revenge."

"He killed them?" Angela asked, her heart sinking. She had no love for Gary or Hodge, of course, but the idea of the iconic hero Charles Lindbergh actually murdering people was unsettling.

"No," said Hadley. "He did to them what they'd wanted to do to the children. He turned them into babies."

Angela gaped at him. "He did?" It was crazy to imagine big, muscular Gary and sneering, intimidating Hodge as helpless little babies. "So… where are they now? What's going to happen to them?"

"They're residing in a crib in my office, for the time being," Hadley replied. "We haven't yet decided what to do with them. They were un-aged from adulthood to infancy, which means that there's about a seventy chance of permanent brain damage if we let them grow up naturally, and a ninety percent chance of damage or death if we re-age them through time travel."

Despite everything Gary and Hodge had done, Angela couldn't help feeling sorry for the babies they'd become.

"There are people," Hadley continued sadly. "Time agents and others, who want them to be punished for their crimes. They think Gary and Hodge should be re-aged and given lengthy prison sentences." He shook his head. "Personally, I don't see what good that would do. Un-aging them to infants is something the time agency never would have done; it's completely unethical and illegal, but… I can't help thinking it will be a good thing for those two. The initial brain scans done by our medical team when they first arrived revealed minimal damage, and although it's possible it could increase as they get older… wouldn't it be nice if they could be adopted and raised as completely new people this time around? Given another chance?"

His expression was imploring, and Angela felt her heart swell with affection for the man in front of her and his tenderhearted goodness. She reached out toward his hand, resting on the desk, and covered it with hers. "I completely agree with you," she told him, looking up into his eyes. "I know there probably isn't anything I can do to help persuade the time agency, but if there is… let me know."

Hadley met her gaze for only a moment before pulling his hand away and averting his eyes. Angela felt the rejection like a punch in the face. What had happened in the time she was away? To her it had been five and a half months—five and a half long, agonizing months of missing Hadley and praying she'd be able to see him again—but she'd thought barely any time at all had passed for him.

Had watching her while she looked and acted like a thirteen-year-old made him start thinking of her as a kid?

"What's wrong?" she asked, hating the way she could hear her voice trembling.

Hadley sighed. "The merging of the time streams solved a lot of the problems that had been created by the time crash, so I'm grateful for it. But it certainly puts a damper on things between you and me."

Angela felt a spike of fear. "What do you mean?"

Hadley regarded her sadly. "You may not have realized it yet, since you were so involved in all the time travel leading up to the merge that your time-traveling self is the one whose thoughts and memories are the most dominant right now. But if you really stop and think about your other life—the one in which you didn't spend thirteen years researching time travel—you'll understand why we… can't continue this relationship."

Angela didn't want to hear those words. She didn't want to think about her other life, or about any problems that would prevent her and Hadley from being together. But even before he was finished speaking, she remembered. Her stomach sank like a rock and her mind reeled with horror at the fact that she'd even forgotten in the first place. Forgotten about the man who'd been by her side for the last six years. The man who'd accompanied her to family events and taken her on fun dates and encouraged her to keep pursuing her piloting dreams.

Her fiancé, Marcus Smith.