Content warning: This chapter involves attempted suicide. Please take care if this is a sensitive subject for you.

"What if I say the wrong thing?" JB fretted. He was back in the basement with Jonah, pacing and sweating and tearing at his hair. He'd just watched the next thirteen years of Sam's life, waiting for the elucidator to indicate the right moment to jump in. JB was prepared to face any number of external dangers in the 1800s, but what was he supposed to do when it was her own mind trying to kill her? Leo's words echoed in his memory: Sam might not want to be saved by the time you reach her. He buried his face in his hands and tried not to scream.

"Kevin predicted you'll have ten minutes, right?" Jonah asked.

"Give or take," JB said. "The elucidator will be set to send me back at the last possible second if it doesn't…" His throat clenched. "If it doesn't work."

"Don't think about that," said Jonah. "I may not be a seasoned time agent, but I know that worrying about what I couldn't control didn't help me all those times I was sent back as a kid."

"Yeah, that's because you were a thirteen year-old boy. That impulsivity goes away as you get older."

"I'm not suggesting impulsivity, JB," said Jonah. "I don't even think that's possible for you." One corner of his mouth twitched upward as he said it.

JB groaned. He wasn't in the mood for jokes.

Jonah swiftly dropped the smile. "I can't tell you what to say to her. I don't even know her."

"Isn't this supposed to be your area of expertise?"

"No. I'm just a student. Plus I'm specializing in developmental psychology, not trauma. My family might think I can do it all, but really, I'm just good at listening and occasionally giving my best guess."

"But what if I say the wrong thing?" JB knew he was repeating himself, but the question would not leave his mind. It wouldn't be the first time he'd botched an important social interaction. His first meeting with Jonah, for example, was almost a major disaster. He'd said something idiotic like, I needed to get you alone while cornering him in a bathroom stall. It was a miracle he'd managed to get Jonah to listen to him instead of running out of the bathroom screaming, Stranger danger!

"All you can do is your best."

"What if that isn't enough? You saw my last interaction with her. We didn't exactly part on good terms."

Jonah stood up from the sofa, blocking JB's path. "Then tell her how you actually feel. Don't be afraid to show some vulnerability. She's probably feeling extremely vulnerable herself."

JB stopped pacing and regarded the twenty-six year-old in front of him. Jonah had always been wise for his age, even at thirteen, and JB couldn't help but feel proud of the young man he'd grown into. "I wish you could step in and wow us all like you did in the old days," JB said. "You and Katherine were always better at working with the human side of history when all of us 'experts' couldn't wrap our heads around anything but statistics and data. I wish you could go instead of me. You might actually have a chance at getting her out."

"That's ridiculous," said Jonah. "There's a reason Kevin's projections showed that you're the only one who can do this."

"That reasoning is beyond me."

Jonah huffed and threw up his hands. "Are you kidding me? You know, JB, for someone related to Albert Einstein, you can be so bone-headed."

"What?" JB was stunned by the sudden outburst.

"Sam needs you. Not me. Not anyone else. You. So stop driving yourself crazy trying to figure out what the right or wrong thing to say is, because all you have to be is yourself."

"And if that's not enough?"

Jonah didn't answer, but JB knew what he was thinking. If that's not enough, nothing will be.

...

Kevin was incredibly nervous. He'd run the projections hundreds of times, but that was still no guarantee. Plus, everyone had to play their part perfectly in order for it to work.

The Correros would stay in the twenty-first century to monitor and notify the agency as a last resort if something went wrong or if they located Gérôme.

Kevin, Jonah, Jordan, and Katherine were in charge of creating a diversion so JB could slip into 1888 unnoticed by Cira. The 1840s appeared to be the most stable decade, so a little damage was unlikely to cause any serious ripples; only enough to set off some alarm bells for Cira.

Everyone else was tasked with keeping an eye on the years between 1888 and the present and contacting Hadley immediately if any of the monitors alerted to a drastic change.

They gathered together in the time hollow one last time to see JB off. He was back in old-timey clothes now, something he'd found stashed in the time cave. Kevin thought it looked exactly like what he'd been wearing when he first arrived in the basement, but according to Hadley, this was more appropriate for the 1880s. Whatever.

"Will you be warm enough in that?" Mom asked him. "It looked really cold on those cliffs."

"I'll be fine, Linda. Thank you." There was no animosity in his voice now, just gratitude. "And thank you for letting me stay in your home. I know I haven't been the most pleasant guest."

"You're welcome anytime, JB," said Dad. "Really."

"Sam too," Mom added. "Maybe next year we can all get together for Christmas."

JB breathed a small laugh, but shook his head. "If the plan works, I don't think either of us will be back in the twenty-first century anytime soon. Right, Kevin?"

"Uh, yeah," said Kevin, a little surprised. He still wasn't used to being the one that everyone looked to for verification. "You won't want to stay in any one place or year for more than six months after this. Too much potential damage otherwise."

"We're going to miss you," said Emily. She took a step forward and pulled JB into a hug. "It was really good to see you again."

"It was great seeing you too," said JB. He let go of Emily and addressed the whole group. "It was great seeing all of you. And I'm grateful for everything you've done for me."

Katherine and Jonah dove to hug JB next. He stumbled backward a bit from the force, but smiled and hugged them back. "Thanks for coming to find me," he said. "And everything else."

"Of course," said Katherine. "You think we'd just let you give up after seeing how positively smitten you are with Sam? No way."

JB's face turned a light shade of pink. "Um, thanks, Katherine."

Hadley and Angela said their goodbyes too and wished him luck. By now over half the people in the cave had tears in their eyes. Though Kevin wasn't among them, he did feel the weight of all the emotions that swirled about the room.

After a final wave goodbye, JB took a massive breath and pulled out an elucidator—the one Kevin's siblings had been hiding all those years. It was funny how protective of it they'd been, only to give it away now without hesitation.

JB pressed a button, and with a sad smile, he vanished.

...

When JB landed, the mist was so thick, he could hardly see a foot in front of him. He pushed forward with his arms outstretched, feeling his way through the blasting sea air. The only sound louder than the wind and surf was the thumping of his heart. Sam had to be close.

"Sam?" he called.

No answer.

He tried again. "Sam, are you there?"

Still nothing.

"Rosalie?"

Only the crashing, hissing tide. He hunched over as the night hurled a fierce gust of wind into his path, almost knocking him to the ground. He gritted his teeth and plodded on.

Just as he was beginning to fear he was too late, a dark shape materialized from deep in the haze. As he got closer, it sharpened into a small figure in a striped green and pink dress. She stood with her back to him, brown hair flapping wildly in all directions. For a moment he was too breathless to speak, overcome by the swarm of emotions that rained fire on his heart.

Then she took a step forward, almost teetering off the cliff, and he found his voice. "Sam, stop!"

She froze, but didn't say a word. Now was his chance and he only had ten minutes. "You don't want to do this." Still, she didn't move. "Listen…I know I can be bad with words, but if you'll just let me explain—"

"It's too late," she said, still frozen in place. "I'm done."

"Sam, please—"

"It's Rosalie. Sam is gone. She doesn't exist anymore." She kept her back to him, still as the cliffs that loomed over the bay. "Rosalie," he murmured as gently as possible. "I think Sam is still in there somewhere, and I hope she can hear me because she needs to know how sorry I am. The things I said to her last time we spoke were simply unforgivable. They were also untrue."

"They sounded pretty damn convincing to her," she shot back.

Shame corroded his insides, but he tried to explain. "That's because I thought the only way to save her life was to make her believe I didn't want her. It was stupid and cruel, one of the worst mistakes of my life. That's why I wish I could speak to her now, to tell her the truth."

"And what might that be?"

He swallowed the lump in his throat and said, "That I'm in love with her."

Though he still couldn't see her face, there was a sudden lift in her posture, which seemed promising. He continued. "You know, I used to think falling in love was something that could only happen once, but with Sam, it never stops. I fall in love with her every second of every day, ever since that first morning in Gévaudan, when we went to the marketplace and her eyes just sparkled at the sight of everything. It's just a shame it took me so long to realize it. Rosalie, if you could see how she lights up in the presence of something she loves, you'd fall in love with her too. I'm begging you, don't take her from me." It was all he could do not to fall to his knees.

Her shoulders sank again and she sighed. "Sam only makes life worse for others. She's the reason Elizabeth Stride ended up murdered in Whitechapel. She's the reason all those women in Whitechapel were murdered."

"No, Gérôme is the reason. And he only got to do all that because Interchronological Rescue gave him the opportunity. That's not on you."

"It's not just that. Don't you know Sam's the reason Ginny was sold to the Harts?"

He tried to keep his voice calm and soothing, though with every second that ticked by, he worried he was almost out of time. "That was a different life, a different person."

Finally she turned, and the despair in her eyes nearly broke him. "JB," she said, "I can't make excuses for myself like that when I know that under the right circumstances, I'm capable of something so terrible."

He took a cautious step forward and said, "I think everyone is capable of being terrible. Gary and Hodge kidnapped over thirty kids to make money off of rich folks who would have treated them like trophies rather than human beings. Does that mean Greg and Henry deserve to die?"

Sam didn't answer.

He inhaled. "Sam, let me take you away from here. I can't promise it will be an easy life—we won't be able to stay in one place permanently—but it could be exciting. Think of all the time periods and places we could visit. It would be like…like running away together to explore the world." What are you saying? You sound ridiculous. He shoved the thought to the back of his mind. There was no time for self-doubt. "I know this is fast and I know you're scared. I'm scared too. And confused. And uncertain about everything except the fact that I want you in my life. So I'm asking you, Sam, will you run away with me?"

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands to her forehead, shaking her head. "I…don't know…I don't know!"

There wasn't much time left. If he wanted to save her, he had to do it now. He closed his eyes and remembered Jonah's advice: Don't be afraid to show some vulnerability Somehow he mustered the courage to reach into the deepest crevices of his mind, to a memory he'd tried to lock away because it was too painful to discuss, too terrible to even think about. But right now Sam was in pain, and he couldn't let her feel it alone. So he sucked in a breath and unlocked that door for the first time in years. "You know, I wasn't completely honest when I told you about the time I tried to end my life back in my twenties." He'd told her it was the hallucinations that had tormented him, but he hadn't mentioned what they were about or what had triggered them.

"It was just after one of my first big missions traveling to the past," he said. "I was with my former work partner, Torin, and we were chasing down a criminal in World War One, who was attempting to steal some memorabilia off fallen soldiers. This, of course, was before I knew I was Tete Einstein. It should have been impossible for me to even travel to that time, but Mileva must have found a way around that…" Stop rambling. There's no time. He started clawing at his palms again, so he shoved his hands in his pockets and clenched the fabric instead. "Anyway, our job was to catch the guy and get out, which, in theory, was simple. But down there in the trenches, seeing all those young men—boys, really—fighting a war they didn't understand, I couldn't just leave without doing something." He'd been so young back then, so inexperienced. He and Torin had the privilege of invisibility, but that couldn't protect them against the environment. "We wore gas masks in case of an attack, but the boys in the trenches had nothing. And I thought to myself, What are the odds we'll get gassedwithin the few minutes we're down here chasing this idiot? So I took mine off and set it in the lap of one sleeping soldier who looked about fifteen, at most. I figured he needed it more than I did, and it would be visible by the time we were gone, so he'd recognize it as something that could save his life." JB remembered the brief moment of foolish pride he'd felt, thinking he'd done a good deed. Sadly, the consequences were almost immediate. They were so close to catching the criminal when they spotted a grayish green cloud of poisonous gas creep its way toward them. "Torin looked at me and saw that my gas mask was gone, so he took off his own and put it on me. He was always looking out for me, knowing how new I was to the job. I didn't even realize what was happening until it was too late." The criminal got away, Torin suffocated to death before JB's eyes, and that sleeping boy probably didn't even wake up in time to notice the mask before the gas killed him too. "In those days, you had to type out your destination manually on the elucidator, so I'm not even sure how I managed to get home. I must have been on autopilot."

Finally Sam inched away from the cliff's edge. "Oh, JB…" Her attention was fully on him now. She reached for his arm, but he didn't have the strength to stand anymore. He sank into the grass and she knelt to his level and took his face in her hands. "I'm so sorry."

"Torin had a pregnant wife and two kids, but my stupidity took him from them," he continued. "I couldn't live with what I'd done, so I decided…I decided not to live at all." The memory was so vivid and raw; it dragged him back to that moment and he thought he might black out. No. Stay awake. He focused instead on the warmth of Sam's palms on his face, the compassion in her eyes.

"What stopped you?" she asked softly.

"My parents caught me in time and rushed me to the hospital. But if you want to know why I never tried again, it was because of what Torin's wife later told me. She said, 'Killing yourself isn't going to bring him back. It will just prevent you from doing anything good in the future.' Those words stuck with me the rest of my life, and they've gotten me through a lot. It's those words that got me through the past few days when I thought I'd lost you forever. But I'm hoping you'll save me the pain of having to go through it again."

Sam stroked his cheek, brushing away the tears he hadn't even noticed were trickling down. She then wiped her own eyes and said, "Let's get out of here."