Thank for reviewing, and sticking around for chapter two. I hope this story continues to hold your interest. :) I don't know when the next update will come. Sorry, haha.

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Chapter two

Katie showed up exactly on time the next day—there was a brisk, sharp knock at the door just as the secondhand on Carl's watch sprung forward to hover for a moment beneath the twelve, making it eight o'clock in the morning, on the dot.

"Good morning, Katie," he greeted her once the door was unlocked and open for her. "You're right on time."

She smiled shyly at him, and he noticed her hairdo was just as flawless as the day before, though this time she had it swept up and pinned high behind her head. It made him wonder how early she had to wake up to get such seemingly effortless curls. There was no way could they possibly be natural, he reasoned—although, then again, everything about Katie was entirely unnatural.

Carl couldn't help but keep a close eye on her as he walked her through the café and kitchen, giving her a tour of her new workplace. He knew, based on what Ronald had said, that Katie wasn't dangerous or anything, but he felt on edge around her in spite of himself.

"So, uh…Ronald said you'd done something like this before, correct?" They had returned to the front of the café now, both standing behind the counter. Katie tried to tie the strings of the apron Carl had given her as she answered.

"Yes. I worked for my grandfather, Wallace. He owned his own café and bar. I was a waitress, and I did the cooking, when he needed me to." Her forehead wrinkled in concentration as the strings slipped from her grasp once again. "I'll admit, I'm not so good at pastries, though."

"That's fine. You can learn, and anyway, I'll handle most of the cooking and baking. I just need someone to cover the tables…" He stopped, watching her struggle a few moments longer. "Here, let me get that for you."

It was subtle, but he saw her blush. "Sorry," she said, letting out a small, embarrassed laugh. "I don't know why, but I feel so nervous. My hands are shaking."

"It's okay, you'll do fine," he replied automatically—it was always his instinct to try to alleviate anxiety. He crossed the room and stood behind her, taking an apron string in each hand. Her shoulders hunched and her back stiffened as he tied a neat knot, as though she were uneasy with his proximity.

"Why did you hire me?" She kept her back to him, so he couldn't see her expression, but her tone sounded serious and assertive.

He let his fingers drop to his sides and began drumming the sides of his legs nervously. "Um—well—" he stuttered meaninglessly, taken aback by her question.

She turned to face him, revealing her mouth pinched by a worried frown. "Are you doing Ronald a favor?" Now her voice wavered slightly, but it remained grave.

"I needed a waitress," Carl answered, finding it hard to meet her eyes. "That's why I hired you."

"Are you telling the truth?"

Katie's question gave him pause. Yes, he'd be lying if he said that Ronald's request had nothing to do with why he hired her. But he also couldn't say that it was the only reason. There was something compelling about her, her preternatural aura both startling and charming at the same time.

"You're qualified for this job, Katie," he said as sincerely as he could. "I'm depending on you now, so please do your best."

He saw the relief slacken her face, softening her features into a moldable smile that made him feel as though he'd done a good deed. "Thanks," she said, her voice almost a whisper.

Just as Carl sensed that this was significant—that the two of them were having what some would call A Moment—there came a rattle and a ding as the cash register's drawer embedded itself deep into his side.

Katie jumped at the noise and then clapped a hand over her mouth when she saw clutch at his side and curse. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he grumbled, shoving the drawer shut. He rubbed at the sore spot near his hip, imagining that if this kept up, sooner or later he'd have a lovely drawer-shaped bruise tattooed across his stomach. "I'll have Louis take a look at it later, see if it can get fixed. For now, just try to avoid standing in front of it."

She kept her hand pressed to her mouth, staring at him with wide eyes, until she unexpectedly burst into laughter, the ethereal sound gushing forth, making Carl forget everything else. Because for that moment, he saw what she must have looked like carefree, without whatever sickness was clouding her mind—her eyes clear and narrowed by her smile, her head thrown back as her laugh bubbled out, her whole body losing its tension—for that moment, she didn't look like a scared and confused girl who felt trapped in another time. She looked like Katie, eighteen-years-old, who liked being a waitress, whose biggest problems were that she didn't know how to bake and couldn't tie her own apron strings.

"It's almost nine," Carl said, more gruffly than he meant to, but her sudden unrestraint unsettled him—hell, nearly everything she did unsettled him, to be honest—and he was eager to push things back into the confines of a professional relationship, which meant no more epiphany-inducing laughter from either of them. "That's when we open, and the morning rush starts soon after. So be ready."

Katie quickly sobered up, standing up as tall as her five feet would allow. "Yes, sir," she responded solemnly, so solemnly that he half-expected her to salute. The thought made him smile, which he cleverly disguised by hiding his mouth behind a cough and a fist.

x x x

"Jeez, and you do this every day?" Katie fanned herself, her cheeks flushed from the first taste of her new job. "Grandpa's place never got this busy."

The café had cleared out now that it was two thirty, which meant they just had to hold down the fort until closing at six. It had been a fairly smooth day; Katie hadn't made any serious blunders, and had actually eased Carl's workload. Overall, a definite success.

"Ready to quit yet?" he joked, grabbing the broom and dustpan that lay against the wall. Katie plopped down at one of the tables.

"Not at all," she said, shaking her head vehemently. Her hair had come loose in strands, some sticking out haphazardly and other pieces delicately framing her face. A light brown stain blossomed down her white apron front—likely from the tea she'd spilled on her way out of the kitchen during the lunch rush. Thankfully the tea had been iced, so she wasn't burned, and no one but Carl had seen it happen. Even the glass containing the tea had escaped unbroken.

"Do you like working here?" he asked, and as soon as he did he realized that he truly cared about her opinion. With Ellen, he always felt like she'd helped him out of obligation. She never seemed to understand why the café meant so much to him. He waited for Katie's answer expectantly, a part of him hoping very much that maybe she would get it, would maybe even feel the same way he did.

"Like it?" She appeared truly surprised by the question. "I love it! It's amazing to watch you work."

He let out an unconscious, quiet sigh of relief, unaware he'd even been holding his breath. "That's great—thank you very much." He felt himself blush a little as her compliment sunk in.

"I mean it though—I can't believe how good you are. I swear you know everyone!" she continued, impassioned and genuine.

"Well, it's a small town," he said modestly, though he felt instantly pleased by her ardor.

"But you've got every single order memorized! Like when that woman came in, the one with the short pink hair, you knew—"

"Liz. Every now and then she stops in the mornings for tea and a muffin. That's easy."

"Or the old man with the crease over his eyes that makes him look like he's constantly angry—"

"Saibara. At first glance, you'd think he'd be a black coffee kind of guy, but he likes a glass of milk with his sweet potato pie. He doesn't come in so often because Doctor Alex says he has to watch his cholesterol."

Katie shook her head and smiled. "See what I mean? It's more than just orders. You know these people."

"It's only because I've seen them so many times," Carl insisted, waving off her praise. "You'll pick it up in no time. You've done a good job so far."

She shrugged like she wasn't so sure, but looked grateful for his flattering remark. "Thanks. I don't know if I could ever be like you, though."

An undemanding silence settled over them, and for a moment they both seemed content to listen to the gentle swishing sound the broom's bristles made against the tile. Finally, desiring to get the conversation going again, Carl asked casually, "So, what was Sugar Valley like?"

Her guard went up immediately, he could tell by the look on her face. She didn't trust the intention behind his question. Talking about where she was from came too close to the elephant in the room—her alleged time travel. "Sugar Valley was nice," she said simply. "Much smaller than this town."

Carl chuckled good-naturedly. "That's hard to imagine—Flowerbud Village seems so small to me. I'm from the city, so…" He glanced over at Katie and saw she was staring intently at the ground, at the spot he'd just swept. It didn't look like she was really listening. "Katie? Is everything okay?"

She kept her eyes focused on the floor. "I…I know what you're trying to ask me. Just go ahead and ask it."

"I don't know what you—"

"Please," she pleaded, her gaze flickering to meet his for just a moment. "Ask. Get it over with."

Carl swept the last of the crumbs into the dustpan and dumped it into the nearby trash can. He set the broom and pan back against the wall and took the seat across from Katie. "I have to admit, I am curious about what you said before…"

"About the time travel," she clarified. The expression on her face was carefully blank, as though she was working very hard not to show how she really felt.

"Yes. About the…the time travel."

Katie took a deep breath. "It's as I told you before. I'm not supposed to be here. This is the future, and I'm from the past."

"But…but what makes you think that? How did you get here?"

She squirmed in her chair, clearly uncomfortable, but at the same time, eager to get out her story. "It just happened one day. I woke up, and everything was different. Wrong. It wasn't how it was supposed to be. Grandpa, he was…" She shuddered, as though recalling some past horror. "He was dead. And I realized that somehow, I'd been thrust into the future. I mean, he'd been sick for a long time, but I could've saved him. I can still save him. I just need to go back. I need to find the time machine and go back."

"Where is the time machine?" He felt a pit forming in his stomach.

"I don't know," she whispered, her voice hoarse. She seemed close to tears. Her eyes squeezed shut tightly and she pressed her lips together.

"I'm sorry," he said hurriedly, realizing how much he'd upset her. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to—"

"No, don't worry about it," she told him with her eyes still closed. "I'm fine. I just miss home, that's all. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize. It's okay."

They sat there until Katie's distress had passed and she got up to finish the sweeping. All the while, Carl sat and watched and thought about how much time he spent telling people it was okay, when sometimes it really wasn't, not one bit.

x x x

The week went by much faster than Carl expected.

"So what's this I hear about a fireworks festival?" Katie asked as she vigorously wiped down a table. It was closing time, so they were straightening the place up. "It's supposed to be tomorrow, right?"

"You probably know more about it than me," Carl answered, setting chairs upside down on the tables that were already clean. "All I know is it's always on the last Saturday of August, at the beach."

"You don't go?" She stopped washing and looked at him, her head cocked to the side and her hand still tightly clenched, pressing the rag against the table's surface.

He paused briefly before giving his reply. "Well…no. I just moved here at the beginning of last summer, and I didn't have anyone to go with at the time. I was still the new guy." Ellen hadn't asked him out until the fall, and he hadn't had the guts to ask Eve, the barmaid of the Moonlight Bar (he worked there for a short period before he opened his own café; she never gave him a second glance). He shook off the disappointing memory before continuing. "Anyway, it's more of a couples thing. And fireworks don't really interest me."

"Oh. Guess I'm in the same boat as you were, then," Katie said, hesitating before she started wiping tables again, this time with a little less zeal. "I mean, as the new girl and everything."

"You can still go, you know," Carl told her, grabbing a nearby mop and sloshing it down on the floor. "If you really want to, you should."

"I don't know…I wouldn't want to go alone…"

"I'm sure there's someone you could ask," he said thoughtfully as he mopped. "Who have you met so far?"

She stopped working again, this time leaving the rag on the table. She stuck her hands in her apron pockets and stared at her feet. "Well, you. That's about it."

"Really?"

"Really." She seemed embarrassed and kept her eyes directed downward.

Carl blew out a breath, trying to think of a solution. Clearly, this fireworks festival was important to her. She probably felt really lonely, but at the same time, she didn't know how to join in with the rest of the town. It would probably be a good opportunity for her to socialize…

"Well, what if I went with you?" He swallowed, almost wanting to take the question back. What was he doing?

Her head jerked up immediately. "Really? Do you mean it?" She looked absolutely ecstatic, and Carl quickly forgot his regret.

"Yeah, of course," he told her with a smile. "We'll meet up beforehand, let's say…tomorrow night at the square, six o'clock?" Then something occurred to him. "Um…will it be okay with Ronald if you go?"

She frowned, suddenly looking serious. "I'm an adult, you know. I don't need his permission to go see fireworks. Just because you guys think I'm crazy doesn't mean I can't handle it." She said it matter-of-factly, without a trace of bitterness, which didn't exactly ease Carl's worries.

"Okay, okay, you're right," Carl replied hastily, wanting to avoid confrontation, and more importantly, the topic of time travel. "So six o'clock. Town square. Tomorrow night. Right?"

Katie beamed, satisfied by this answer. "Right."

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