When Jeffrey opens his eyes again Kate is staring straight at him. Is she ...? No, she just blinked.
"How are you?" He touches her arm lightly. Kate is still lying in the recovery position.
"Cold," she replies.
"I'm sorry. I didn't think to bring a blanket."
"I'm half naked."
"I hadn't noticed."
"Sure." Her father had explained to her about the perception of boys in general and their perception when it came to girls in particular.
"Really." Jeffrey wants to keep looking in her eyes, but there is something in the way she said 'sure' that makes his eyes dart down. The he notices the marks in her neck. "What is this?" He touches them lightly. Kate winces.
"Someone tried to strangle me. I don't know what happened after that. I guess we voyaged."
"We did. We're not in Kansas anymore."
"I never thought we were."
Jeffrey chuckles, despite himself. Can't paraphrazes movie quotes to Voyagers; they don't get them. Kate's dry remark takes a lot of his worries away. He rubs her arm to comfort her, and in part, himself.
"Where are we?"
Jeffrey veers up. The omni. He finds it on the ground next to Kate.
"Southern part of Sweden, 1676, red light."
"Technically, in 1676 the most southern part of Sweden was Pomerania, which at the reshuffeling of boarders after World War II became part of Germany, East-Germany more particularly."
Jeffrey roles his eyes and gives Kate a push against her shoulder. "Get up. You have recovered. You don't need to be in the recovery position anymore."
Kate roles on her stomach. "Seen as in these parts a war is going on in 1676 I rather not go strudding around the woods half naked."
"If you get up we can go and get yourself some pants. They won't come to you on their own."
Kate considers this and gets up. She tries to pull her shirt down as far as possible.
"Or you could wear it like that," Jeffrey suggests. "Miniskirt, very fashionable in the 70's."
Kate glares at him. "1970's, not 1670's."
Jeffrey laughs. "Whatever the era, you have the legs for it." He suddenly stops laughing and quickly turns around before Kate can see him turn red. "Let's go. This way." Kate follows him, carefully on her bare feet, having a private chuckle.
---------
After a while they hear shouting. They follow the sounds and find a small lake and some men playing in the water. Kate's eye immediately falls on the clothes they have left behind. She sneaks over and helps herself to what she needs.
"Before you put those on you could use a bath yourself." Jeffrey points out.
Kate takes one look at herself and quickly agrees.
"But I'm not taking a bath here."
"We can find another spot."
Jeffrey and Kate continue through the woods rounding the lake until they find another open space.
"This place is even more beautiful." Jeffrey takes of his clothes, runs into the water and takes a plunge. "Oh, Kate, you have to come into the water. It is great."
Kate takes his word for it and wades into the water until it is at thigh height. Careful not to get her clothes wet she washes the dirt of her face, arms and legs. Jeffrey splashes some water at her.
"C'mon, you loved the water on Hawaii. This is even better. You must have a swim here."
"I'd rather not."
"C'mon, why not?"
Jeffrey grabs Kate by her arm and pulls her down. She disappears under water and resurfaces with her arms flapping wildly. She doesn't stop flapping until she finds firm ground for her feet to stand on.
"Don't ever do that again," she hishes at him.
Jeffrey looks at her in bewilderment. "Are you all right?"
"I can't swim."
"I'm sorry, Kate. I didn't know that."
"Well, now you do." Kate turns around and starts wading out of the water.
"I can teach you how to swim. Now is as good a time as any."
"No thanks, I've had enough near death experiences for one week."
Jeffrey can't really blame her for that. He dives back in and swims away. Kate greets the dry land and hangs her wet things out to dry. She puts on 'her' pants and Jeffrey's shirt and sits down waiting for Jeffrey to return, trying to figure out what the red light could mean.
She rests her head against the tree trunk. She watches Jeffrey play in the water. She should learn to swim sometime; it looks like fun. At least Jeffrey's having fun again. No thanks to her. She takes him to his parents, and then she takes him away. How cruel is that? "Why won't you go back to 1989?" she asks the omni. It just blinks its red light at her in reply. Jeffrey's been so nice to her. He hasn't played the guilt card at all. Not that he'd have to; she feels bad enough without any outside help. And the Council isn't helping either. What's taking them so long to get them home? She didn't turn the homing signal off, did she? She looks the omni over. No way of telling.
Kate takes a deep breath and resolves herself to be friendlier to Jeffrey. He doesn't deserve this, and he saved her life. Why was she so unpleasant to him the other day anyway? Because all this waiting for the Council to get them home is getting on her nerves. And if it hadn't been for Jeffrey, it also would have gotten her killed. She should not take her anger with the Council out on him. She should be nice to him, and maybe he'll like her and be her friend. She'd like that. She's never had a friend close to her own age. Kate closes her eyes.
She's woken up by Jeffrey who rubs his hand through his wet her and splashes Kate in the proces, purposefully.
"You're wearing my shirt," he points out.
"You can wear mine."
"That's probably still wet."
"You got it wet."
Jeffrey has a feel at the shirt. "It's dry." He throws it at her. "And so are your other things." He throws them at her too. "Now, I'd like my shirt back. I won't look." Kate raizes an eyebrow. Jeffrey sighs and turns around. Kate has another quiet chuckle and changes into her own clothes. "Are you done yet?"
"All done." Kate throws him his shirt in his neck. "Here's your shirt. Now you can get dressed too. I won't look." Kate puts a hand before her eyes and turns her head away.
Jeffrey gives her a quiet 'haha' and puts his shirt on. He flops down beside her.
"Now we're both washed, freshened up and dressed we can start to think about what is wrong here."
"Like I said before, a war. The Danish-Swedish war over Scania."
"Can't say I know much about that. 1675-1679, Swedes won."
"There's not much we can do here then, if neither of us knows anything about this war. We might as well leave."
"Very unsatisfactory option." Jeffrey shakes his head. "It'll gnaw at me if we don't find out what's going on here. I think we should do some recon."
"Recon?"
"Reconnaissance. It means to find out what's going on."
"I know what recon means. I was just asking in respect to how do you suppose we do that here?"
"Well, those men we saw earlier, they might have an encampment out here somewhere. We could try to find out where it is and then infiltrate their camp."
"Infiltrate?"
"Infiltrate is to go in ..." Kate hits him. "Or we could lure one of them out of the camp and you could beat the information out of him."
Kate hits him again. Jeffrey rolls over laughing. Kate shakes off her resolve. No point in being nice to people making fun of you.
