Christmas is here
Time for good cheer
The children are singing
The bells are ringing

Jo sat with Johnny and Daisy in a circle of children at the library. Daisy sat in her aunt's lap, while Johnny sat just in front of her right knee. The circle contained ten or twelve other children, along with their parents or babysitters. It was story hour, and Jo had taken her young niece and nephew after Meg had mentioned that they loved it.

Johnny sang out the lyrics loud and clear, while Daisy leaned back against Jo and closed her eyes as she gently fingered the paper snowflake which the teenager who led the group had helped her decorate.

"Who's coming soon?" the young woman, whose name was Brianna, asked.

"Santa!" all the children shouted together.

"And what is he bringing for all the good little girls and boys?"

"Presents!"

"I'm hungry!" Johnny complained.

"We're going to McDonald's in just a few minutes," Jo promised.

"I want my Mommy!" Daisy mumbled.

"We'll see her in just a little bit. She has to take care of your Daddy so he can get healthy and strong again."

"I'll see you all next week!" Brianna announced.

Jo picked Johnny's coat up and began to guide his arms into the sleeves, then did the same with Daisy's.

"Are they twins?" asked the plump blonde who'd been sitting beside them.

"Yes." Jo barely glanced her way.

The woman chuckled. "You must have your hands full!"

"I'm their aunt," Jo explained. She picked up the diaper bag which held the pull-ups, sippy cups, wet wipes, and extra changes of clothing for 'just in case.' "Now, off to Micky D's we go."

She strapped the children into their car seats and drove to the nearest McDonald's, where she ordered a Big Mac meal and two Happy Meals with chicken nuggets. She was just about to reach for her debit card when she felt a warm hand cover her own.

"Please, allow me to pay."

She looked up into Fritz's twinkling brown eyes.

"Hi! I wasn't expecting to see you here!"

He chuckled. "I was searching for a place to have lunch when I saw your car in the parking lot and could not resist stopping and coming inside. I see you have company."

"I'm watching them for Meg while she's helping John with his recuperation. Say hi to Professor Bhaer, kids."

"Hi, Professor Bhaer!" Johnny and Daisy piped dutifully.

Fritz bought himself a Quarter Pounder meal, and the four of them found an available table. Jo strapped Johnny and Daisy into high chairs and took their food out of the packages.

"How is John's recovery coming along?" Fritz asked as they were eating.

"He's doing better." Jo wiped a dollop of ketchup from Johnny's chin. "He's still in a lot of pain, but he can get around better now and is still eating solid food. They're saying he can go back to work in six weeks." John was a math teacher at a local high school.

"I am glad to hear it."

"I wanna play in the ball pit!" Johnny cried.

"Me too!" Daisy echoed.

Jo looked at the messes on the two trays. "Eat two more French fries each, and then you can play in the ball pit." Patiently, she counted one, two, as the French fries were quickly crammed into the small mouths. She retrieved we wipes to clean both faces, then took the children down from their high chairs and led them to the ball pit.

"I have to say, you are a real natural with children," Fritz remarked, when she returned to the table. "One would almost think you were a mother yourself."

Jo's mind filled with memories of Paul and Freddy, and tears began to fill her eyes.

"I - I was a mother," she said softly.

Right there in McDonald's, the whole story began to spill from her lips - how she'd awakened in Martina's life, her experiences in school and, later, the factory and then the hospital, of meeting Dieter and falling in love with him and, finally, of rescuing him only seconds before he was to be hanged, of the fantastic trip through the worm hole. He listened intently, hanging on her every word, his face registering no surprise.

"Opa always said those were the most exquisite colors he'd ever seen," he said when she finally paused for breath.

Jo was nonplussed. "Opa?"

Fritz smiled. "Dieter and Martina were my grandparents," he explained. "Their only daughter, Elisabeth, is my mother. She was born in 1952, and she married my father, Thomas Bhaer, in West Berlin in 1972. I was born in 1976, and Minna came along five years later, in 1981."

Astounded, Jo could only stare. She'd fully expected Fritz to think she was out of her mind, delusional, yet not only did he believe her story, but he'd just supplied the missing piece to the puzzle which had haunted her for so long.

"I - I don't quite know what to say." She heard her voice quiver. "For so long, I wondered if I was crazy. I was so scared to tell anybody at all. And then I went to Professor Horton's lecture, where he talked about worm holes and multiple universes, and then I thought - what if that's what happened to me?"

"It could very well have been," said Fritz.

Jo shuddered. "There was one time when I came back to the present and - you weren't here, and not only that, but nobody had even heard of you!"

"Obviously, that was a visit to a world in which my grandfather was hanged, so that I was never even born. Fortunately, you and I live in a world in which a brave young woman risked everything to save a doomed man, and I - " his voice began to shake, and his eyes moistened - "I do not know how to thank you."

He kissed her then, and it was a kiss unlike any he'd ever given her - full of gratitude, desire, longing.

"Aunt Jo!" Johnny's voice pulled her back to the present.