"The Mistaken M. Jones"

18. Real Me

March 2012 – Lima, Ohio

She hadn't immediately known what to say, so in order to cover for that she'd slipped into her minuscule kitchen, grabbed a glass, and filled it with water, which she brought back for Walter to drink. She practically had to stick it in his hand and close his fingers around it so he wouldn't drop it, and for one long minute, he just sat there, glass aloft, not moving, not drinking. Then he must have felt it at last, because he turned his face to look at it, blinked, and chugged it down. When it was done, he'd put it down on the nearest surface. Another minute went by where all he did was sit, and breathe, and think.

In those two minutes, Gemma had been left to do a lot of thinking, to decide what course of action to take. These last few months had all been about following a certain number of rules very, very closely. It had been in following those rules that she'd forced herself to keep a distance from the man now shell shocked in front of he. When he looked like he was coming back to his senses just a little, she decided that she'd simply follow her gut, and whatever that gut told her to do, she'd run with it and accept the consequences later.

"I know… you must have a lot of questions… right now," she slowly spoke. This seemed to wake him up more than anything else had before.

"Ginny, what just…" There it was, fight or flight. Tell the truth, spin a lie…

"My name isn't Ginny," she found herself saying, and with those four words, the entire road opened in front of her; she'd made her choice. "My name is Gemma Lucas, and I'm not… I'm not from around here… or now."

"I don't understand…" Walter blinked, staring at her. He was looking at the cuff still on her arm. She breathed deep, in, then out. "This is called a vortex manipulator, and as you saw… it allows me to travel both in space and in time." It quickly became clear to her that, if she was going to get him to believe her, she had to be determined, like she knew what she was talking about. She'd made sure to remind him he had seen what the manipulator could do, before she specified it in any way, or else he might have dismissed what she said next. As predicted, his face looked like it had been gearing to say something along the line of 'that's ridiculous,' but then he'd remembered what had happened after, and then he wasn't so sure anymore.

"Space… time travel…" he repeated, and she nodded. "That's not possible. How can you…"

"This was a gift… a loan… from a friend. I came here in order to help her."

"Ginny…" he blinked, then when he saw her shaking her head, he paused. "Gemma," he repeated the name, and she took a step forward, crouching and taking a knee so to be at eye level with him, but then thought of something and stood again, digging in the pile of books he'd knocked over and returning to his side.

"Look at this, do you see it?" He nodded. She opened the page and showed him the publication year.

"Twenty forty-two?" he kept staring at it.

"I wasn't even born yet," she nodded, and he looked at her again.

"Are you… I mean, I… Are you... human?" he finally asked and she chuckled, nodding.

"Human, American… New Yorker," she declared, and that seemed to deflate some of his shock. "You alright?" she asked, and he took a breath.

"Yeah," he replied. Now that he'd had more time to adjust, he was starting to look amazed more than stunned. "You've travelled back in time," he said the words, still in awe.

"Back, in time, forward… Everything that ever happened or ever will. Aliens, and humans, and some that were both… Charlie Chaplin…"

"He was a bit of both?" Walter stared at her.

"No, I just met him…" she clarified. "Although, you never know."

"So why are you here?"

"Can't tell you that, not exactly…"

"How long do you get to… stay?" he asked, and she tried very hard not to have to look at him when she answered.

"I don't know, not much longer." June. I'll be gone in June. She felt his hand at her chin, directing her to look back at him. For one trepidating second, she'd thought he was going to kiss her, but he just stared at her, deep into her eyes like he was trying to find something she'd had hidden there.

"Is that why you wouldn't talk to me?" He had her locked in; she couldn't look away without giving herself away, but he already had the truth, all figured out, so what did she have to give away.

"You want to know how long I get to stay? June. That's when I'll leave, and I won't see you again. I shouldn't even have said yes about this date, but I slipped. And now you know, so what do I…" He was smiling. "Stop that," she begged, but he just kept on smiling, letting her face go. "So you're happy now, is that it?" She wished she had that luxury. Now they'd said it, and it had become so very real.

"Never happier," he nodded. "Might have been more if I didn't know you were leaving, but…" She sighed. "So you've been in here, all this time, by yourself… reading… Because…"

"If no one got attached, then no one got hurt," she stated, granting herself the choice not to have to look at his face, the one she'd known almost immediately she might have been falling for.

"Sounds pretty lonely." She could have thought of a hundred different ways to brush this off without replying honestly. Her gut had been allowed to make decisions now and it was relishing in it.

"It is," she admitted.

"So, June… Now you've got someone to talk to until then." Her smile was a sad one, but it was a smile. She pressed her head just near his shoulder, and he put his arms around her.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)