Kate and Jeffrey appear in the middle of a crowded sidewalk. People have to go out of their way for them, others bump into them. Jeffrey looks over the heads of the people at the buildings across the street.

"I think we're in New York," he says. He shivers. "Winter in New York."

Kate checks the omni. "Yep, we're in New York. And we're in 1982. Hey, I did pretty good at moving the time boundary. I deserve a pat on the back." Kate pats herself on the back.

"1982. The year my parents die. The year Bogg drops into my bedroom. The year everything changed. What day?"

"February 16."

"The night my folks ..." Jeffrey suddenly starts running. Fighting himself a way through the crowd.

"Hey, wait up!" Kate hangs the omni on her belt and tries to run after him. The crowd doesn't give much way. Kate has a feeling she knows where Jeffrey is going and she hopes she can catch up with him there, before he does anything stupid.

Jeffrey reaches the building where he used to live with his parents. Maybe they're still at home. He rings their bell. No answer. Maybe they've just gone out and he can still stop them at their car. He finds his way into the parking lot. Where did they used to park? He looks around. There! The space is empty. What to do now? He walks back to the street, trying to collect his thoughts.

Kate stops in front of him, panting, pressing a hand in her side to stop the shooting pains. She folds trying to catch her breath. Holding up a hand indicating Jeffrey to wait. He waits a moment. Not for Kate, but trying to remember what route his father took.

"Jeff, good that I caught up with you." Kate manages in between gasping breaths. "I know what you want to do. I understand it, but you can't."

Then Jeffrey realizes where he can catch up with his parents. He turns around and starts running again, without saying a word to Kate.

"Jeffrey," she shouts after him. "You can't change your own history." She runs after him, ignoring her pain and tiredness.

Jeffrey finds himself at the avenue where his parents were killed. The avenue where they had their accident. It is dark, there is a snowy drizzle. The traffic rushes by him. Sometimes the lights are mere blurs. He has to cross the street. He waits for a small gap and runs across the first lane. In between lanes he stands still, waiting for the next gap. Cars are honking at him. Some drivers change their path a little to steer around him. He's sure they're shouting all kinds of abuse at him. A gap. He crosses the next lane.

When they had the accident they were in the most left lane. A driver from the opposite direction had lost control over the wheel, and had driven straight at them. A full frontal collision, killing both his parents, the passenger in the other car, but not the driver.

Jeffrey reaches the middle of the road. Now what? How can he stop the on-storming cars? Behind him he hears a car come to an emergency stop. Its tires squeak on the road. He hears a thud. Cars on both sides of the road pull over. He sees his parents' car three cars down. Like other drivers his dad is getting out of the car to see what's going on, if he can lend assistance. People are shouting about ambulances.

What happened? Jeffrey turns around. He sees a car with a dent in the windscreen. The driver behind it seems to be in shock. Some people huddle around in a circle by the side of it. Someone was hit by a car. He gets a bad feeling about this. He gets a little closer and peers through the gap the huddle leaves and stares at the person on the ground. Kate ...

-oOo-

The ambulance has arrived. Paramedics are with Kate. Police is directing traffic. His father drives by slowly. Jeffrey looks at himself in the backseat. The boy looks him straight in the eyes. With curiosity? With accusation? He has saved his parents' lives, but at a cost. The paramedics put Kate on a gurney.

"Will she be all right?" he hears himself ask.

"Can't say that yet," the paramedic replies. "What were you doing in the middle of the road anyway?"

"I wanted to prevent an accident." Jeffrey looks away.

The paramedic frowns at him. "Fine job you did there," he mumbles. He closes the door to the ambulance.

"Where are you taking her?"

"Are you related?"

"Friend of the family." With a shock he realizes. "How will I tell her dad?"

"Can't help you there, but we're taking her to ..."

--

Jeffrey doesn't hear the location. He suddenly is in an all together different place. He's sitting on the bed in a small bedroom. The desk by the window is supporting a large pile of papers and books. Jeffrey drops the phone he was holding to his ear. Where is he? What happened? He gets up. Bewildered he looks around the room. There are piles of books and clothes everywhere. Even the bed is covered. I really need to clean up in here. The thought surprises him.

Someone's shouting through the phone, he picks it up again. "Hello?"

"Oh, hello. Are you back?"

"Mom?"

"Yes, Mom. As I was saying. I know you have your own life now, being a student and all, but are you coming home for your father's birthday this weekend?"

"Dad's birthday?"

"Yes, you remember, you have a father and a mother. Those old people that live in the house you grew up in. Patiently waiting for you to return a phone call after two weeks."

"I would never take two weeks to call you back."

"Sure. Must have been the dog that ate all those messages you left me. So how about it, are you coming over?"

"Yes, I guess. Mom, I don't feel very well right now."

"Okay, I'll talk to you this weekend. Love you."

"Love." Jeffrey drops his hand holding the phone. What has happened? He sinks down.

--

Jeffrey sits down on a chair in the hospital waiting room. What is this? Where is he now? He sees a nurse walk past. A hospital. How did he get here? He sees a policeman talk to a doctor. They look in his direction. He clenches his fist. He feels warm liquid spilling over his hand. He looks down. He was holding a plastic cup of coffee. Now he's wearing it. The doctor and the policeman come over to him.

"How do you feel?" the doctor asks him.

"Disoriented," he answers truthfully. "How's Kate?"

"We've stabilized her. But she has some serious injuries."

"Will she be all right?"

"Hard to say. We'll have to see how she makes it through the night."

"Can I see her?"

"Only for a moment. Come with me." The doctor leads the way, Jeffrey follows her.

--

The dial tone disturbs Jeffrey from his thoughts. Again somewhere else? No, back in the messy bedroom. He hangs up the phone. He's trying to figure out what's going on. Why is he switching between places? What's going on? It started after he saved his folks' lives. And Kate had that accident. Kate! She may know what's going on. He has to go and ask her. He grabs his coat of the back of the chair and runs out of the room.

--

Jeffrey sits down by the bed. He listens to the reassuring beeps of the heart monitor. He takes Kate's hand in his.

"I'm sorry," he says. Then he's quiet. What else can he say? He wants to ask what's going on. But does she know? Can she answer?

"Okay," Kate says. Jeffrey jumps up.

"Can you hear me? Can you talk to me?"

"Little."

He can hear it takes her great effort to utter just that one word. But he has to ask her. He has to know. Why is he going back and forth between two lives, like it was some kind of ping pong game? He asks her.

"Fault. Your," she replies.

"My fault? Why? What did I do?"

"You. Change. Time."

"Yes, yes, I changed time. I changed time all the time. But I have never experienced anything like this before. What is different this time?" Jeffrey is nearly shouting.

A nurse walks in. "Hey. This patient needs her rest. If you can't calm down and sit quietly, I will have to ask you to leave."

"Stay."

--

Stay, Kate said, but Jeffrey finds himself on a bus. A bus on his way to see Kate. Why is this bus taking so long?

When he's finally at the hospital he runs past the nurse at the desk shouting "I'm here to see Kate Bogg."

"Hey, you can't go in there," she shouts after him. He goes into the room the doctor had taken him before. It's empty. Where is Kate?

"Where is Kate?" he asks the nurse that came in after him.

"Who?"

"The girl, the woman that was in here, traffic accident, badly wounded."

"I'm sorry, but you're too late. She passed away an hour ago."

What? Kate's dead? Jeffrey sinks down on the empty bed holding his head in his hands. Kate's dead. He's leaping between lives. What did he do? He feels like crying. He allows the feeling and starts to sob.

"Were you very close?" the nurse asks.

"She was the daughter of my best friend. It's my fault she's dead."

"I'm sorry," the nurse says.

--

Jeffrey hears the beeps of the heart monitor again. He quickly sits down.

"Kate. You're alive."

"Barely."

"Kate. In that other life I keep getting into someone told me you were dead. I'm so glad you're not. But I would really like to know what's going on. You said because I changed time. But that makes no sense. I've changed time before, but this has never happened."

"Can't. Change. Own. Time."

"Can't change own time? I don't get it. What does that mean?"

Kate takes a while before she replies. "If change own time. Time gets confused."

"Confused? How?"

"You not same person. As before change. Then not make change. You two people. Time confused."

Jeffrey is starting to understand what's going on. If you change time, that changes everything, the good and the bad. He prevented the accident that killed his parents, but perhaps also prevented himself from becoming a Voyager. That explains himself as a student. But he can only prevent the accident as a Voyager, not as a student. As a student he couldn't have gotten back in time and prevented the accident, which would mean he would become a Voyager. Time got confused: he is a Voyager and at the same time he isn't. It's confusing him.

"So that's why I have these alternating lives. And is it just for me?"

"Everyone in your life."

"Everyone in my life? So Bogg, my folks, all those people I've met through out history, they're experiencing this? They're hopping between lives?"

Jeffrey tries to imagine what that is like. Benjamin Franklin who never flew his kite alternating with Benjamin Franklin who did fly his kite. Perhaps not much of a difference there. Werner von Braun being ping ponged between life in the USA and the USSR. "That's bad."

"Yes. You screwed up history."

Jeffrey thinks he can detect a little smile in Kate's face, or is that her wincing with pain?

"Can we stop it? Reverse this effect? Unconfuse time?"

"No. Can't change own time. More confused."

"So we're caught? For ever switching between two of our lives?"

"I'm not."

"You're not? Why?"

"Think."

And Jeffrey thinks. If he didn't become a Voyager, he wouldn't have been lost in time, Bogg wouldn't have looked for him for all those years, Bogg wouldn't have had Kate. He squeezes her hand.

"You weren't born," he whispers.

-oOo-

Phineas Bogg wakes up in a cold sweat.