Author's Note: Well, here's that 'suspiciously-like-another-show' part. I'm sure you'll see what I mean afterwards.

Thanks to those of you who left reviews, they were much appreciated.

Part Three

Jonathan shook his head in stunned disbelief. This couldn't be real. It couldn't be possible. They were hundreds of light years away from Earth. Surely no transporter could be powerful enough to send him this far, this quickly?

The first explanation that crossed his mind was that maybe he was unconscious. The machine could have knocked him out and he was just imagining all this. Although it seemed a little too real for that. And what exactly would be the point of a machine that knocked people out anyway? He still wasn't willing to believe anything bad of such a seemingly harmless race as the Lant'al. Jonathan prided himself on the reliability of his first impressions and he wasn't about to give up on the one he had of their new friends just yet. Although if and when he got back, Gideo was going to have a lot to answer for.

His second thought was that perhaps this was a highly advanced type of holodeck that the Lant'al wanted to trade with them and this was their idea of the hard sell. Maybe the light tunnel he had stood in was some sort of mind reader that allowed them to recreate San Francisco from his childhood memories.

But that still wouldn't explain why he was allowed to see it and T'pol and Trip weren't.

With his mind still pondering over the puzzle, his feet began to walk without his bidding and he started to take in the sights, smells and sounds. Part of him knew he should be more scared or at least more concerned, but he felt so comfortable and assured in such familiar surroundings after the long, unknown darkness of space. Here, everything was familiar. No aliens threatening to blow them into particles, no chance of offending anyone by sneezing, proper air, real light and more people in this one street than worked on the whole of Enterprise.

Yet somehow such well-known surroundings seemed different. It reminded him of when he'd had the most awful head cold once. Days of working too hard, feeling ill and having very little sleep finally caught up with him and he had had to admit defeat and take a few days off. It was as though his brain couldn't process what his eyes were seeing fast enough and there was a slight lag between him perceiving something and actually recognising it. It made it seem as if he was looking at everything in a whole new manner.

There again, he reasoned, maybe he was. He'd seen and experienced more than could be imagined since he'd joined Starfleet and left on the Enterprise. Experiences like that could definitely change a man's view on things.

A few rather meandering paces later he heard the laughter of a group of girls standing meters away. For some reason the sound stood out above the other general noise around him. Glancing towards them, he watched as one of the girls waved goodbye to her friends and went to cross the street.

Jonathan frowned as his gut clenched inexplicably and his pace quickened without any conscious decision to do so.

The girl walked between two parked vehicles, checking the street for oncoming traffic. The light breeze suddenly picked up to a short sharp gust, blowing some of the papers off of the pile she had been caring on top of her folder. With a mildly irritated look she turned and bent down to pick them back up.

Jonathan began to jog, his eyes fixed on the girl and not the people who were giving him strange looks as he pushed rudely past them.

The girl stood again, checking around her to see if there were any papers she had missed. Stepping back to get a better look, she was too engross in making sure that she had collected everything to realise that she had inadvertently walked out onto the road.

The vehicle coming straight at her didn't have time to stop.

The screeching of tyres against tarmac made her see her mistake, but only in time so that she could watch death come at her in open mouthed horror.

At the last possible moment Jonathan rammed heavily into her side, sending her flying roughly but well clear of the car as it stopped ten feet after where she'd been standing. His Starfleet training had taught him how to fall properly, and his sense of chivalry had made him take the force of blow and so he lay there a little dazed and winded as people including the driver and the girl's friends came rushing up to them both.

He sat up amidst a whirlwind of 'are you alright?', 'oh my God' and 'what happened?'. His head was still buzzing and his body still stung, and he wasn't sure whether or not the questions were directed at him or the girl.

"You're not hurt, are you?" he eventually croaked, trying to get to her through the concerned web of friends.

"Er....no. I don't think so," she said, sounding shaken. She tried to help her friends pick up all the things she had dropped but they just pushed her back down to sitting.

"You should get yourself checked out by a doctor," Jonathan insisted, now quickly recovering.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure," she said, still dazed and sweeping her mess of hair off her face. She looked at him for a long moment, finally realising what he had just done for her.

"Thank you," she said with great sincerity, "I think you might have just saved my life."

Jonathan however barely heard a word. He was just staring and staring at her face.

The girl was taken back by his sudden change in expression.

"Are you okay?" she asked, concerned and a little confused.

He nodded absently, stared for a few more long moments and then suddenly scrambled to his feet and stumbled away as quickly as he could. Some of the small crowd gathered asked him if he was hurt, but he just pushed past them and ran off down the street, ducking into a small side alley and hoping no one was following him.

He slammed his back up against the cool wall so hard that it hurt, but at least it gave him confirmation that this was real. Or some kind of reality at least, because he really didn't have a clue anymore.

That girl.

Marie Anne Jackson.

She had been his girlfriend for two years in high school. Right up until she'd been killed in a car accident just after her seventeenth birthday. An accident he had seemingly just prevented.

What was this - some kind of time travel? Could the Lant'al really have the technology to do this? He knew they were advance. Even T'pol was impressed by their technology. But this was beyond anything imaginable.

Is that what Gideo had meant by fixing things? To go back and fix a past mistake?

Ever since it happened he'd always wondered that if he'd left football practice just a few minutes earlier maybe he could have saved her. Could Gideo's technology really have given him that chance?

But hadn't the Vulcans always said that time travel was impossible?

This made him snort a small laugh. And since when had the Vulcans been totally forthcoming with what they did and did not know? He wouldn't put it past them to hide something like this. They didn't think that humans were mature enough to be travelling in deep space, let alone travelling through time.

And perhaps they were right. Hadn't he just played quite spectacularly with the existing timeline? Although technically it wasn't his fault. It had been instinct when he had seen what was about to happen. He didn't know who she was. If Gideo had only warned him...

It turned out the small alien was right though, he wouldn't have believed it unless he saw it with his own eyes.

He shook his head. God, what had he done?

Calmer now, taking some deeper breaths and trying to inspire some rational thinking, he looked around wondering what to do next. He had to get back to his own time or whatever before he did anymore damage. How the hell was he supposed to get back again though seemed to be a mystery.

He glanced around the alley, making sure no one was immediately about.

"Gideo?" he said, in as louder tone as he dared.

Nothing.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

Silence.

"Gideo!" he snapped, annoyed. Raising his voice didn't seem to help much though.

He ran his hands over his face, momentarily closing his eyes as a small respite from all the questions he still needed answer to, but then flicked them back open when he realised that something didn't feel right.

His face and his hair. They felt different. Taking a few apprehensive steps forward he stood in front of a window on the side of the opposite building. He carefully wiped away some of the dirt so he could stare at the only vaguely familiar face looking back at him.

It wasn't him, that was for sure. This guy was much younger for a start. He couldn't be any more than eighteen. His hair was slightly longer, thicker and sandy blonde in colour. His face was more boyish than Jonathan's had even been at that age. He thought he recognised the guy from his maths class.

Even through his amazement, he was distracted by the movement of a reflection in the window. Through the slight blur he saw a young man, tall for his age with the build of a footballer. Turning he watched with mixed feelings his young self ran up to Marie and talked to her worriedly. A moment later he flung his arms around her like there was no tomorrow.

Who knew, after what Jonathan had just done maybe there wasn't going to be. He had no idea of the consequences of changing history like this. Although, from what Gideo seemed to have been suggesting they did this all the time.

He shook his head, trying to shake some of the more confusing questions away. Boy Gideo going to have something to answer for when he got back. If he got back.

Jonathan managed to get once last glance back at the street and his younger self leading Marie away before the light waterfall began again without warning.

A few short moments later everything became dark.