§ § § -- January 17, 2005

Brennan Reese stopped in front of Roarke and Leslie on Monday morning with a wondering look about him. "I'm still not sure this weekend wasn't a dream," he remarked.

"Perhaps in some ways, it was a dream," Roarke said. "It might be said that the reality you knew when you arrived was the dream, and now, as of this morning, you have awakened to the truth."

"Yeah, I guess that's the way to look at it," Brennan said, nodding thoughtfully. "So, then, just what did happen to Amarette and Gareth?"

Roarke grinned and handed him the diary. "Why don't you read this on your way home and find out for yourself, Dr. Reese. And before I forget…Leslie?"

"Oh yeah." Leslie pulled a slip of paper out of a pocket. "This is a short list of web-sites you might find interesting. One is for the clinic originally started by Amarette Blaine and Gareth Moran, and another is a family site for their descendants."

"No kidding," Brennan said, astonished, taking the paper and peering at the site addresses. "Amazing. I tell ya, this really has been a weekend to remember. Thanks for making everything right, Mr. Roarke." Roarke smiled at that, and they all shook hands before Brennan turned and moved slowly toward the plane dock, already reading the diary as he walked.

After bidding farewell to the weekend's other fantasizer, they lingered long enough to watch the plane taxi out of the lagoon, and Roarke noticed a slightly pensive expression on his daughter's face. "Is something wrong, Leslie?"

"I'm just trying to figure something out," she said. "Is Dr. Reese going to always know that history was different before he came here? And what about us? Are we going to have the memories of history as Mephistopheles tried to make it, alongside the memories of it as it was supposed to be?"

Roarke smiled. "There are any number of theories about that," he said, "but I believe my favorite is the one that suggests that those who were aware of both versions of history will recall the temporarily changed version for some time, though the memories will gradu-ally fade as the true history reasserts itself—not just in the universal memory, but in the individual one as well. Dr. Reese may always remember that he came here to have a wrong put right, but in time he is likely to forget precisely why."

"And I'll wind up with the same thing, I suppose," Leslie mused.

"I expect so, yes," Roarke said, "based on what very little you know."

She nodded, then stopped and gave him a sharp stare. "Hold it. Your favorite theory? Don't tell me—you're not even remotely affected, are you? After all, if you were, you wouldn't even call it a theory, never mind your 'favorite' one. The memory change will happen to everybody but you, won't it? Don't deny it, I know it's true…" They headed for the car, and Roarke let her carry on, smiling inwardly. There were some secrets he would never reveal, even to Leslie.

I'll be paralleling events in my ongoing FP project Bloom for Me, so those of you who have been following that story will see some familiar events from that in the next tale—magnified, of course. Stay tuned…