They quickly dressed in awkward silence, Uncas finding an old rag to clean most of the vomit from his arm, and when in a suitable state, they returned without debate, back to the infirmary. It was quiet, no one was about, they had probably taken a break as it must have been around supper time now.

Erin drank a little of the calming floral tea Cora had made earlier and left to seep, the sweetness of it taking away the taste of acrid bile. She glanced at herself in a stained old mirror resting against the wall, her lips were blushed and slightly swollen, she could still feel the pressure of his mouth upon hers and quickly looked away, chastened and wretched.

She fetched a bowl of clean water and a cloth, offering it out to Uncas with a quiver running through her fingers.

He took it without a glance towards her and he tended to himself a little more thoroughly than he could with a dry rag, before allowing the cloth to plop carelessly back into the bowl. He then leaned back in his chair, stretching in a shamelessly confident way, Erin got the distinct feeling he was goading her and perhaps he was, explanations had to be voiced and it left her very little access to excuses and made up stories.

She could feel his eyes watching her and she flushed in deep embarrassment. The brandy gave her no courage now, leaving her abandoned in a stark harsh reality.

What had she done?

She'd ruined everything with her recklessness, that's what she'd done! How was she meant to clean up this mess? She didn't even know where to begin.

"I am sorry," Erin said, wanting to dispel the silence between them.

"You keep saying that." He was glib and dismissive.

"I have a lot to be sorry for."

He seemed to find this rather amusing, but not in a sympathetic way, more like a hunter waiting for just the right shot to take down that one pesky, annoying deer he'd been tracking for miles.

She swallowed hard and eyed him a moment, there was no more time now, she had already wasted too much. Right now, who kissed who in a short sighted fumble in a store cupboard had to be the least of her worries. She hadn't really meant for it to happen, and seeing how he acted now, Erin didn't think Uncas had either.

She took a deep breath, it was now or never. If she wanted him to believe her, she was going to have to be honest about everything.

"I keep telling you I'm from Russia," she began, slowly, and he studied her with astute eyes, knowing she was about to give him the truth he had known was missing from the very start. "I know you won't be too shocked when I tell you that isn't true."

He did indeed not look shocked.

"I'm not from anywhere here." She tried to sound pointed. "I'm not from this time."

"Not from this time?" He echoed her words, his brow furrowed; his lips quirked, but any amusement did not reach his eyes which were cold and hard and directed unnervingly upon her.

"No." Her mind had taken up the chant of 'now or never'. "I'm from the future... far in the future."

His head gave a slight tilt at her words, trying to make them make sense, a small smile forming on his lips at just how absurd this sounded.

Somewhere in the fort the soft strains of a fiddle played.

"I'm not here by my own will," she said, trying to slow herself from gushing everything out. "I think I came here by accident. Through the triple falls near the Cameron's."

"I know the place," Uncas said, pulling out the only parts that he did understand. "There was blood."

"It was my blood," she said, confirming his unasked question. "I fell through the falls in my time, and when I woke up... I was here."

He gave a low, deep sigh of discontentment but said nothing.

"In my time, where I'm from, the Camerons died in that war party attack."

His head jerked to look at her, eyes narrowing.

"I know I can change things here because I saved them. You would have found them all dead that day. But because they were alive, it delayed your journey, so the trackers nearly found us, I remembered the date and made us move to the Iroquois burial ground. I knew we'd be safe there."

His body language was still relaxed but he had become just a little tense about his shoulders, the change barely noticeable. "I never told you it was an Iroquois burial ground."

Erin nodded. "I know. Your story, your brother, Cora, Alice, all of your stories, I read about them in my own time. That's how I know what will happen."

He considered her words but did not waver in his outward steely resolve. "How do you know my father's words?" He paused, lips pressing together as if debating if he should even entertain anymore of this talk. "Delaware or Mohawk, I could understand, but not my Father's tongue. No one speaks it but us."

Erin's own brow tensed in concentration, trying to think of any explanation, but finding none. "I don't know," she said, panic trying to flutter through her blood, she couldn't lose her chance to convince him, all would be lost if that happened, and she would perhaps never get home. "I can understand you and the French and I have never known any language but English." She gave a hopeless shrug. "Maybe it is a kind of magic, I don't know how else to explain it."

He looked unmoved by this information.

"There was a necklace or a chain at the waterfall, and it stuck to my hand, and.. the blood, and... lots of blood... " She rushed on with words, feeling the chance slipping through her grasp with every passing second. "I think if I go back there I can return to where I'm from, I don't know how I know, but I can feel it's true... but I had to save you first because I know what happens... like I told you before." She was giving far too much information, she could tell he felt overloaded.

He stared at her, face smooth and taut, stony eyes reproachful to her torrent of words. Slowly the tenseness left him, his eyes warming and he looked back at her directly, he looked triumphant, chin tilted to look down at her as if he knew he had just won this fight.

"If you know things that will happen, tell me something that happens this very night?" He looked plainly smug, his body languidly leaning back into his chair again.

Erin pulled at her bottom lip thinking. "Alright," she said, taking the challenge, "I can tell you a few things that will, or have happened tonight. Some that I have no right to know."

He placed his hands behind his head, his look disbelieving and a little arrogant. "Tell me."

"Duncan... Major Heywood has said he saw no signs of a war party near the Cameron's and along the river, even though you all saw the carnage."

He nodded. "Yes, that did happen. My brother nearly hit him. But you could have heard that from Miss Munro, she heard it spoken. It happened earlier."

"True, but I can tell you why he made that choice and said what he said."

He raised a single eyebrow in reply.

"Cora rejected Duncan's proposal yesterday, that's his reason for not standing with you, he's jealous."

A small look of surprise rippled across his features.

"Cora has said nothing of this to me, or even to Alice as far as I know. She made that choice because she has feelings for your brother."

He narrowed his eyes, his expression stating these things proved nothing at all.

"Okay, so I guess I could have known that... but I didn't... Maybe something less emotion based then?" Erin said, frantically trying to read her audience. "Oh, okay! I know that you and Nathaniel helped men escape tonight so they could go back to their farms."

Now, this did shock him, but his face again quickly smoothed, but he looked suddenly a little less comfortable in his seat. "More gossip." He dismissed her words as if they were flies. "Desertion will be rampant once word gets around that Munro doesn't care about the families of men here." This subject had touched a nerve with him and anger briefly flickered within his eyes. His fingers glanced across his chin lightly, regaining control over his demeanour and he settled back into the chair. "I'm sure some would blame my brother if this did happen."

"You helped them because they were your friends, friends of the Cameron's too, Jack Winthrop and Ian McNab.

His hands fell to his lap, he was leaning forward in his seat now.

"How do you know these names?"

"I told you, I already know these things will happen. It happened just after sunset... what, an hour ago? Less? No one knows they have deserted yet."

He looked unsure of her words but less certain of himself now.

"Okay, so next," Erin continued, knowing she had to take the opening of silence between them to convince him further. "Your brother is currently with Cora and he is going to get luckier than you tonight." She coughed, trying to cover her terrible joke.

It took Uncas a moment to understand her meaning and his brow slowly shifted upwards in surprise.

"You can confirm it with him later... if you want, but they are now devoted to each other, and you know I have not been around to hear any of this from Cora. In fact I would wager it's happening right now as we speak."

She stilled a short moment, the sweet music of the fiddle still finding a way to their hearing.

"Finally..." Erin paused, her eyes flicking to him in stilted hesitation.

"Finally?" He sounded curious but also vexed with how this conversation was turning out.

"It's something you won't like."

He eyed her warily.

"Your brother, when you sleep tonight, Munro will find out about the men leaving, he will send his guards to arrest Nathaniel, as Duncan will place blame on him, I guess in petty revenge. They will intend to hang him as a traitor."

Uncas stood then, coming across the room in long strides, his hands suddenly upon her arms, pinching. "How do you know this?"

"I have told you how!"

"Will you go to Munro and tell him?" He shook her harshly. "Have you already told him?! How?! I have only just returned!"

"No! I haven't even seen the man since the first night we arrived! I did try to see Munro today to tell him about what will come, but the guards turned me away. Go ask them yourself if you wish!" Erin said, trying to control her own anger. "I would not do such a thing, and Cora has been with me all day, you yourself saw, lurking in the shadows trying to get me alone." Her breaths were a little laboured. "Then I only had a little time to throw some brandy down my throat before you came along... and, well..." Her cheeks heated and she shook herself inwardly, there was no time for embarrassment. "You were there," she finished in a whisper.

He didn't release her arm and pulled her roughly forwards. "If this is another of your witless games..."

She didn't give him time to finish, her hand dipping into her pocket and pulling out her phone, her thumb bringing the bright screen to life, illuminating the dim room with harsh light.

He let go of her in shock, eyes widening, one foot stepping back.

"It's not dangerous," she soothed, "it's just a tool from my time."

Her fingers worked a moment, pulling up what she wished, before she turned the screen to him.

"Please don't freak out, okay. I just want you to understand what I say is true. I am not from here."

His eyes focused, a picture of Erin and three other people in very strange clothes, a big lit up building behind them that looked like a spray of bright starlight or hundreds of candles, they were all grinning. It was so strange and foreign that it took Uncas a moment to process it all.

"See, this is my friend Ada, and this is my mother, and that's my dad," she pointed out each person. "We went to Las Vegas." Then she swiped, bringing up other images, and he flinched at the change but continued to stare in wonder. "There's me at the beach. That's our ranch. My parents love living in the country. They raise horses, see?" She gave him a sideways glance, hoping he wasn't going to just pass out or run from the room screaming. "This is our dog, Burrito Bandit."

Uncas' eyes flicked to hers only very briefly as if he couldn't help but be drawn back by the pictures. "This is where you are from?"

Erin pressed her lips together and gave a firm nod.

"It explains some things," he mumbled.

Erin couldn't tell if he was trying to make a joke or not.

His finger reached, flexed in hesitation and then touched the screen with a whisper of his finger pad. "What are these, paintings?"

Erin considered his question, she certainly did not have time to go into the science of photography right now. "Of a kind, they capture a moment in time, it's why they look so real."

"Capture? In this little box?" His hand smoothed over the device as if he could understand its inner workings by touch alone. Then his finger slid across the screen, copying the movements he'd seen her do and the picture changed. He studied it closely, a photo of her wearing cut off jeans and a T-shirt, her hair longer, dark, curly and messy. She was smiling as she held up the fluffy form of her small dog, her parents' ranch house in the background, field and greenery crowding the corners of the frame.

She watched as his finger glanced over the image, the bright stark light highlighting all the features of his hand, and she suppressed the blush that tried to come to her cheeks as she remembered what those hands had been doing only moments ago with her in that store cupboard.

He flicked through many more photos, silence hovering over them like a cloud, and Erin felt a small ball of anxiety forming in her gut. Did he believe her? Or would it all be too much and he would look up angry again, ready to turn his back on her fully?

His finger stilled, head tilting as he came back to the photo of her and Burrito Bandit. He looked back to Erin and then at the photo.

"It is you but, you look different."

Erin couldn't help a little high pitched laugh of relief.

"Things are very different there."

"How?"

Although time was short she felt she owed him some explanation, so she made it as simple and compact as she could.

"Clothing, hair, the way people live, everything. Most people just live peacefully. No wars like here. I mean there are wars, but not like this." She huffed, it was all so complicated. "It's less restrictive for everyone too, women have more rights, equal to men... well... mostly. Everyone has the same rights and protection by laws... mostly. Things aren't perfect, but it's less dangerous than now. We have better medicine, people tend to live longer." She paused, trying to pull out the positives. "Sometimes doctors can even bring people back, if they die for a second." Uncas looked mildly bemused and aghast, an effect that left his features shifting into several different expressions.

Erin suddenly had flashes of a hoard of zombiefied red coats, and shook herself, knowing this was perhaps, once again, the wrong tack.

"Okay, I admit that sounds really weird, but it's just a type of medicine. It saves many people and they just live normal lives."

He raised a quizzical brow but said nothing.

"All children get an education," Erin continued, trying to remain on safer topics. "Most people are free to live how they like, I mean like I said, it's not perfect, it's just a bit... better than now." She sighed again. "It's hard to explain." She searched for anything else that could help. "It's less brutal I guess."

"Even for people like me?"

The question caught her off guard. "Yes..." She paused, knowing once again it was not wholly the truth. "Mostly." Erin hesitated but decided not to elaborate. "Like I said, it's kind of complicated."

Uncas took a moment, his eyes closing, almost as if he was dozing off, but Erin understood after a beat that he was in deep thought. The slow realization that he was actually considering her words felt warm and comforting to Erin's mind.

His eyes slowly opened and focused intently upon her. "If what you say will happen comes to pass this night, I will listen to your words."

Hearing someone actually validate her brought a sudden wave of emotion and Erin let out a soft cry at the reprieve, a tear carelessly rushing down her cheek.

"Thank you."

He let go of her wrist, allowing her to pocket the phone once again.

"If you are lying..." There was a deep threat in those words that Erin didn't really want to know the answer to, but she guessed it would at the very least, involve him never speaking to her again.

Erin nodded, "I understand."

He walked towards the fire, his arms wrapping around his body as if he felt suddenly cold even though it was stuffy and warm in these rooms.

"But you said more is to come? You had to tell Munro... what was to come?" He glanced back over his shoulder.

Erin took a few steps forward to stand next to him and she felt that imaginary chill too, it was the presence of downfall and ruination lurking for them all just around the corner.

"Yes," Erin whispered softly, "more is to come."

/

A/N

Hello all.

I'm a few days late but I am here. I hope it was worth the wait.

A gentle reminder that this story isn't going to be everyone's jam, that is fully ok. If you aren't having fun at this point, this story may not be one you will find yourself enjoying.

I also want to extend my thanks to the community here who uplifted me and supported me through a hard time. MohawkWoman, BlueSaffire and Emory Rose, my heartfelt thanks and gratitude for all your time and kindness and your encouragement.

I will be not discussing any further personal stuff here. I understand I was being too open in my struggles and most of you are here to just read a story, not my life story lol

I thank you for stopping by. I hope to be back with you with the expected schedule next Friday.