Here, Now

A Mirror, Mirror & The Missing Fanfiction

Part Ⅸ

~2021~

Cleveland, Ohio

Gavin pushed the button to close the navy Sudan's left backseat window. It whirred lightly. At first the warm, summery air had felt good on his face, but now it was too hot and the only thing he was doing was wasting AC.

At least he wasn't the only one being wasteful.

In the driver's seat, his sister Maria had her own window open a crack, trying to disguise the fact she was smoking a cigarette. Gavin had noticed the moment she lit up, but Daniella, on the passenger side, was so enthralled by a Tetris-esque game she was playing on her phone – along with whatever she was listening to on her earbuds – she hadn't realized yet.

The wind must have suddenly shifted just enough to keep the smoke from escaping the window's crack the way Maria intended, because Anastasia's nose twitched comically – almost like a rabbit's, Gavin thought – and her phone dropped into her lap, along with her right earbud.

"Maria!" she shrieked, reaching over the gearshift to snatch the cigarette from her sister's lips like an outraged seagull. "You know I hate that." And how bad it is for you!

Their sister's attitude towards smoking was just one of those funny things which separated Maria and Leonid from being quite like the rest of the missing children, stolen or rescued (depending on how you looked at it) from history, now they were adults – they hadn't grown up here in the twenty-first century. They'd had to adjust with brains still wired for their real time period. Neither Gavin Danes nor Daniella McCarthy would have ever smoked, having had it drilled into their brains since before they started kindergarten that it would take years off their lives, but – of course – if they'd stayed Anastasia Romanova and Alexei Romanov, they might have. Back in 1918, the only thing which had prevented seventeen-year-old Anastasia from smoking – even as a prisoner in the Ipatiev House – was a shortage of tobacco. They hadn't been entitled to coffee, butter, or cocoa in Yekaterinburg, let alone cigarettes, though the tsar always seemed to have them – perhaps the less hostile of the guards shared theirs with him and he'd accepted graciously despite the poor quality of their tobacco compared to what he was used to.

While Maria sighed and rolled up the window, and Daniella emphatically smashed the cigarette she'd taken from her into an amber-colored ashtray teetering precariously on the dashboard, Gavin checked his phone for the airline ticket confirmation and patted the side of his button-covered canvas backpack for his sleek, unmarked brand-new passport. He'd thought he'd just use the same one from when he was twelve, given it only had stamps from his trip to New Zealand and back, plenty of blank pages, but when he checked, it turned out a child's passport is only valid for about five years.

Even if he could have still used it as an adult, it would have expired by his eighteenth birthday – which had been over two years ago – anyway.

Everything was in order, and Gavin was trying to keep himself from flying into a million excited pieces that this was really finally happening. Scraping up the funds to go all the way to Australia, even with his parents' help (though they still didn't get why visiting Sydney had inexplicably become his life's goal), hadn't exactly been a cakewalk. Then, when he'd been set and ready to go last year, COVID lockdowns had happened. Gavin had spent more time than he now liked to admit, during said lockdown, glaring at the walls of his bedroom, eating Lucky Charms straight out of the box, muttering like a crazy person how either JB or Hadley – both being from the future – really could have made themselves useful warning them about a freaking world-wide pandemic.

If not for the spoiled trip to Australia, Gavin wouldn't have suffered too badly – it wasn't much different from isolation he'd suffered during hospital stays before, and he'd gotten to video-chat with Daniella and/or Antonio most days. Even Sarah – who'd gone to Michigan State (much to Daniella's delight) and got herself stuck on campus when COVID struck – called and FaceTimed him more often than he would have expected her to. She really was a great girl. In another life and time, where he'd never met and fancied Jo, he might have liked her for real. The Skidmores he hadn't heard from much, but they checked in now and again.

However, the fact it felt like yet another dramatic near-miss of getting a chance to find Jo again ate away at him for months.

If this was the universe's horrible way of saying they shouldn't be together, he simply couldn't accept that. He needed to find her. Even if it didn't go the way he wanted. Even if she wasn't everything he remembered her being, everything he'd built her up to be in his mind and heart all these years. Even if he was wrong about the painting she'd done, if the guy in it wasn't meant to be him. Hell, even if he showed up there and found her with someone else. He just couldn't go on without knowing. Always, always hoping there was a chance...

"Thanks for driving me, Mashka," Gavin said, pushing his backpack away to give himself a bit more space now he'd double-checked for the passport, satisfied he hadn't forgot it – that nothing else was going to stop him going to Australia. Not this time. "My mom's still on this kick about how I should wait because everything's just barely opened back up in NSW. She means well and everything, but I know she'd have spent the whole ride to the airport trying to change my mind." And it couldn't be changed.

"Of course." Maria smiled into the rearview mirror at him.

Gavin smiled back.

They had the exact same smile.

Gavin never told his parents exactly what Maria was to him, though they saw her around plenty, but even they'd noticed the smile.

"Soooo, this burning interest in visiting Australia... This insatiable wanderlust urging you to go Down Under again..." Daniella reclined her seat so far back it was almost in Gavin's lap. She fluttered her golden-brown eyelashes at him dramatically. "It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact Jo Tiegan lives there, would it?"

"Oh?" he replied, nonchalant, obtuse, the smile gone. "Does she live there? Maybe I'll drop in and say hello – while I'm there. If I find the time."

Daniella started making obnoxious kissy noises, lips pursed into a duckface.

"Grow up. And put your seat back right!" He cleared his throat and, as soon as her seat began to lift, reached for the backpack again, drawing out two neckties, one black and one dark blue, from a side-pocket. "But, uh, hypothetically, if I was going to see Jo – and I'm not saying I am, you know – which one do you think she'd like better?" It couldn't hurt to get a female opinion.

Daniella was laughing too hysterically to respond – and he took his revenge by kicking her seat, hard – but Maria sighed dreamily, "The blue, Gavin. Definitely wear a blue tie when you meet her. It brings out your lovely eyes."

"And clashes with your lovely hair!" cackled Daniella, rolling back and forth and gasping for breath as she clapped her hands together.

He kicked her seat again. Harder.

Daniella sat up, restored from her giggling fit, and began fiddling with the dial on the radio. "We need tunes. Otherwise, this is gonna turn into an afternoon special, and you both know I can't be serious long enough for that."

"Ana–" Maria caught herself. "Danny, this is hardly the time–" A familiar beat blared out. "Oh, never mind, I like this one."

"Yeah, me too," Gavin admitted, since none of his friends were in the car to hear him make such an embarrassing confession. "Turn it up."

"You got it, little brother." Daniella grinned and cranked the volume up, nearly as high as it would go. (She still called him that sometimes – little brother – even though, here in the 21st century, they were the same age.)

And if the people they zipped past in the Loading/Unloading Zone wondered whether the trio of blue-eyed young adults blaring – and loudly scream-singing along to – Ricky Martin's Livin' la vida loca were entirely mentally stable or not, they kept the side-eyeing to a relative minimum.

Daniella got out – after the song, of course – and took Gavin's suitcase from the trunk, hefting it with an exaggerated flourish. "Phew. Well, okay, so I'm guessing this bag is your hair products – and you got another one back here for your clothes and guyliner?" She pretended to feel around the empty trunk with a laid-flat hand. "Because I think Maria's gonna have to carry that one."

"What is this, fixate on Gavin Danes' hair day?" He scooted out of the car and swung his backpack over his shoulder. "Or are you just low on material this late in the week?"

"God!" Sniffling, she set the suitcase down and put her arms around him, squeezing and holding on tight. "I'm gonna miss you so much!"

"I'll miss you, too, Danny-Dans." He added, more softly, "And I don't wear eyeliner."

"I remember one time you did."

Maria got out on her side, walked around the front of the Sudan, and enfolded him in a warm hug as soon as Daniella had let go. "You're going to find her," she murmured into his ear, speaking in Russian; "I know it."

~2021~

Sydney, Australia

"Uh-uh, okay, no way – I put up with a lot – you know I do – usually I wouldn't care – but either ugly bird gets out of my display or I quit!" Jo Tiegan hoisted up a rather unfortunate-looking emu statue and thrust it into the arms of the curator standing next to her. "This is my first major showing since we reopened after lockdown, and I am not going to have my reputation marred with the likes of that. I mean, dear God, what if somebody thinks I made it?

"Mark, look, I don't care whose niece you promised could have a piece in my section – if I get credited with this freaking abomination, if I have to spend the next month explaining to the art community at large that I am not Emu Lady, I will run – not walk, run – to Sydney Harbour on my lunch hour and bloody throw myself in." She glanced sidelong at the curator, who blinked owlishly behind his rimless glasses and was still clutching the emu to his chest, exactly as she'd placed it, his expression uncomprehending, then brought her hands to her face. "How is this more irritating than when I literally had COVID?" She groaned.

Footsteps sounded on the floor behind her. Someone had entered.

Jo slowly brought her hands back down, tired dark eyes blinking open as she did so. "I'm sorry, mate, we aren't open yet. You're gonna have t–" Her voice broke off. She stared, unable to believe she was really seeing who she was seeing. A squeak escaped, but her words stuck in her throat.

Gavin Danes was standing there, at her work. "Hi, Jo."

Mouth agape, she took a step nearer him, the hard soles of the shiny shoes she'd consented to wear to look more professional echoed on the lino. "I–" Why couldn't she make herself talk normal? Say hi back? "You–" Her mouth closed; she swallowed hard. "You look like..." Nicholas. He looked like Nicholas. "...you," she finished lamely. "You look like you."

"Well, yeah, I'd hope so," he said softly, still smiling, maybe not understanding.

God, she felt like such a dag! Of course Gavin grown up would look like Nicholas, her Nicholas from 1919; they were the same person. She'd always known that was who he was going to grow up to be. There was no reason in the world it should surprise her. He was older than sixteen now, naturally, but of course he'd look more like Nicholas at this age than like the twelve-year-old child who'd lived with her parents in 2012.

What was he doing here, anyway?

His wide blue eyes seemed to study her, maybe gauging who she looked like now. "Your hair's longer," he murmured. It wasn't a lot longer, only chin-length, but long enough, she guessed, to look different from the image of her in his memory. "I never knew it was curly." He reached out a finger and bent forward, touching the tip of a curl near her cheek.

"Talk about hair," Jo burst out, voice strong at last as she noticed. "Yours is purple!" She ran her hand over the mauve and violet strands for a second before letting it drop heavily to her side. "When did that happen?"

He chuckled. He'd forgotten he hadn't already had the wide purple streak on one side when he was in New Zealand – he'd gotten that done a year later, back home in Ohio. Over the years, he'd come close to trying to phase it out, have it back to a more natural appearance again, but it grew in lighter than the rest of his hair and he thought it looked kind of funny, which – because, otherwise, most of his good looks were fairly effortless – made him self-conscious. Then he'd gotten bored during lockdown and just doubled down on the whole purple hair thing. Most people he knew in Ohio barely noticed anymore, totally used to it.

But if Jo didn't like it...

"You don't like it?"

"No – I mean, yeah, yes – I love it" – she really did, thought it oddly suited him – "it looks great on you, Gavin."

No preening peacock, brilliant feathers splayed, could have been more self-satisfied than Gavin Danes in that moment.

"Can I take you to lunch?" Gavin's gaze strayed to a clock on the wall behind them. "Or...uh...breakfast?" Brunch? Anything? He stared down at his sneakers, the same not new, not yet old pair he'd worn at the airport and checking into his hotel, suddenly feeling under-dressed and pathetic. He'd wanted so badly for her, when he finally found her, not to see him as kiddish. Why hadn't he put on boots before he came here? And the blue tie. He should have listened to Maria and worn the blue tie. "I thought, if you wanted to catch up... I, um..." Suddenly this felt so much harder than it had a second ago, when they were laughing at each other's hair. "Uh..."

"Yeah, thanks, I'd like that." To the curator, as she took Gavin's arm, looping her own through it and feeling like she was moving in a fever dream, dazed, only half aware of herself, "This is an old friend of mine from America. I'm going on my break early to catch up with him, and when I get back, I fully expect it to be Bye Bye Birdie, got it?"

Before they reached the glass doors, Jo disentangled herself from Gavin to button up her coat.

It was still funny to him that it was cold here, when it was nearly July. But being a life-long Aussie, apart from her short time in New Zealand, where the weather was also backwards, this was no doubt normal for her.

He wasn't sure whether the sloppy way she fastened her buttons was due to nerves – the shock of seeing him again after all these years and just running out of her workplace on a whim like this – or simply the usual Jo Tiegan brand of casual sloppiness.

What Gavin was sure of, however, was this:

The topmost button on the coat – which she did not do up, didn't even brush with her little finger as she fumbled with the others – was different from the rest.

It was almost black. To someone not looking for the difference it practically was black, but it was actually blue – dark, navy-ish blue that shimmered in the broad slant of sunlight coming in from the nearest glass pane as she haphazardly adjusted its smaller, darker neighbors.

It had four holes, while the black buttons lower down had only two. It was sewn on unevenly, by untrained hands and not the fingers of a professional tailor or an industrialized machine.

It was, Gavin knew absolutely, the button from his shoebox he'd given her, back in that yellow house in Wellington.

Despite the fact that Gavin wanted to keep the past firmly there – in the past – wanted more than anything to impress upon her the existence of adult Gavin Danes, he couldn't help asking her, when it came up, why she'd never contacted him. All these years, and he'd tried everything. It had almost been laughable, now he knew all he had to do was show up in person and find her within a day, just walking into the museum, when years of useless phone calls, social media stalking, and too many near-misses had haunted him throughout his adolescence. But for her... All Jo'd had do was write him a letter, old-fashioned as that sounded. Or even just call or text him from someone else's phone after he'd stupidly blocked her, assuming she was already Michael's wife. His address hadn't changed, and he'd stubbornly kept the same number he'd had since he was twelve just in case, even when he got a new phone.

Jo didn't have a ready answer. She could see he was hurt, however nonchalantly he tried to put the question. She brought herself a couple seconds pouring syrup over her stack of pancakes before meeting his eyes.

"I–" Her throat closed. The smell of buttermilk and maple was suddenly cloying. "I did try to call you, when you left me all those messages." What had that all been about anyway? "I was really worried about you."

Gavin sighed. "When I didn't answer, it wasn't because–" He stopped. "Jo, I thought you'd married Michael. I didn't find out until later on you called it off."

"Oh, Gavin..." Sympathy creased her features. There were new little lines around her mouth when she frowned.

"Maybe it sounds dumb now, but I didn't think I could be your friend – not really – if you were his wife." Then, clinking his silverware as he set it down, "Why didn't you try again after? I hoped and hoped you would."

"I'm sorry, I guess I thought you were better off without me."

"Nothing's better without you."

She smiled and reached across the table for his hand. "It doesn't matter, does it? We can be friends now."

The gesture was sweet, but Gavin felt the urge to yank his hand away. She sounded a little too much like she did when she talked to him in New Zealand when he was twelve. He'd hoped she'd understand that relationship wasn't what he wanted. Being her friend was a start, a good start, but it wasn't nearly enough. What he didn't think he could stand was a full return to the dynamic where he was a kid and she was an adult.

But how did you convey to someone you wanted to just be with them, that you'd come from the other side of the planet for no other reason than to find them, without seeming totally nuts?

He didn't take his hand away. Hers was too warm and gentle, her accompanying smile too kind. He couldn't do that to her. He let her draw back first and hoped she couldn't feel him stiffen slightly under her pity-touch.

"Yeah, friends," he managed, and was relieved his voice didn't come out sounding sarcastic.

"So, what are you doing in Australia, anyway?"

He deflected answering by asking if she wanted to see pictures of his graduation on his phone. It wasn't until she nodded and reached for the phone he held out he realized he was only making himself look younger, reminding her how recently he'd graduated high school. How spectacularly could he blow this?

Jo swiped from a picture of him in a cap and gown to one of him standing next to Mr. Danes who was eating a slice of cake. Then to the next one, where he was with Daniella, also in cap and gown.

She recognised her – it was impossible she wouldn't. Hadn't she spent years looking for Alexei – before she thought he was dead, and before Gavin came into her life again as her mum's student – and seen her face accompanying his in black-and-white plenty of times before?

Anastasia was the famous one. Even if it was mostly because of an impostor who'd tried jumping off a bridge in Berlin in the 1920s. Everyone had seen her picture.

The world seemed to be full of miracles Jo couldn't understand. Gavin had appeared, as if by magic, when she'd expected never to see him again. And not only had Alexei Romanov come into the twenty-first century, but somehow his sister Anastasia had, too?

But...

If they'd found each other, in this time, did that mean Gavin had some idea he'd been Alexei once?

How far back could he remember?

Jo bit her lip, hoped her face didn't give her away, and scrolled – as casually as possible – to the next photo on his phone.

A blonde girl in a formal dress with a carnation corsage on her wrist, seated next to Gavin in the backseat of what appeared to be a limousine.

Gavin leaned over to see what she was looking at. He grimaced. "Oh," he coughed. "That's, um, Sarah. Sarah Puchini. We went to prom together."

"She's pretty," Jo said.

Gavin strained in hopes of catching some jealousy in her voice and wasn't sure he did. "She's not my girlfriend," he blurted. "We're not dating."

Jo swallowed back a laugh. The look on his face was hilarious, and his tone was so hurried, so weirdly desperate, it was actually kind of endearing. Flushed cheeks and wide eyes were cute on him. But obviously he took his declaration of his relationship status with Sarah Puchini very seriously, and she didn't want to seem like she was making fun of him.

He took her silence as denial of what he'd said, or else as simply not having heard what he said, and he repeated the bit about Sarah not being his girlfriend.

"Got it," Jo told him, and tried – her success somewhat limited – to hand him back his phone with a straight face.

A distraction was forthcoming.

Jo felt the brush of flat metal against her hand as he took his phone. She'd felt that he was wearing a ring when she'd touched his hand before, but she hadn't gotten a look at it then.

What she'd taken for a class ring – not really a crazy guess, considering he'd graduated high school within the last three years – was Nick's ring; the one from the drum.

Her mouth parted. "How's that even possible?"

"What?" He blinked.

Jo drew her hand back and fumbled for something, a little clasp, behind her neck.

From a chain half-concealed under her shirt, she drew out a glowing, translucent version of the same ring on Gavin's finger. "I have that ring! I've had it since..." Since... "Well, ever since..." Since Nicholas went back through the mirror, leaving it behind. "I–" She stopped, followed the motion of his eyes as they took in the glowing twin to his own jewel. "Wait, you can see it?" Nobody but her and Tama had been able to, all this time. Michael thought she just kept an empty chain with nothing on it.

Gavin took his ring off and placed it into the tracer, fitting it in exactly, swallowing up the glowing double.

Jo was stunned. "Hey, hang on, where'd mine go?"

She looked distressed enough at the loss Gavin took pity on her and half pulled the ring from its tracer to show her it was still there. Sort of. "I think," he said softly, "it's better if they're together now, don't you?"

Not quite understanding, yet somehow agreeing all the same, Jo nodded. "Yeah."

As they walked together, back in the general direction of the museum, sensing his restored time with her coming to an end, albeit only a temporary one, Gavin – eager to keep her close – asked if he could see her tonight.

Was she doing anything? Couldn't they meet up? For dinner or another walk, like they were having now...?

Or for no reason at all?

Jo smiled at him. "I have a show tonight... It's a work thing at a gallery a few blocks from the museum."

"Oh." He tried to shrug off the rejection, looking away.

She touched his shoulder. "If you wanted to come, I–"

He brightened. "Yeah, okay."

"Great – I can give you the address." Jo fished a skinny, slightly dog-eared business card with flaky gilt lettering from her coat pocket and handed it to him. "It starts at seven, but nobody shows up until at least eight, usually."

"What time will you be there?" Gavin wanted to know.

"Oh – early, to set up." She paused. "Six thirty, I think."

Which probably accounted for why, at six thirty-two p.m., one of the other artists at the show, a woman about ten years younger than Jo, and her friend who was a cleaner there, were squealing and shrieking and practically having convolutions over the fact a young man was standing outside with a bouquet of flowers, trying to guess who he was there for.

Jo listened to them for a while, putting the final touches on her section and making sure everything was ready before cutting in with an important question. "Does he have purple hair?"

"Yes!" squealed the cleaner, jumping up and down and clapping her hands like a schoolgirl. "How did you know?"

She shrugged and mumbled something, a smile she couldn't quite suppress already spread across her face, about how he was there to see her.

"Oh, cool – is he like your nephew or something?" the artist-woman asked cheerily, seemingly unaware she'd just done the verbal equivalent of slapping Jo across the face.

"Nephew?" Jo blurted, aghast, smile fading as she made a face like she'd just swallowed something absolutely vile. But then she thought about it. She couldn't even be mad. Not really. It wasn't an insane assumption. Gavin was even younger than Royce. Not that anyone here knew Royce. But still. "No... No, he's not my nephew. He's just a...friend..." She touched the place the button he'd given was sewn onto her coat.

"Hey. Aren't you hot wearing that?"

Jo shrugged it off her shoulders, dragging her arms free, and folded it over her arm before tossing it across a metal folding chair as nonchalantly as she could manage.

They let Gavin in ten minutes early, since he was just standing outside and it was a bit nippy, but when the cleaner told him if the flowers were a donation for the fund they were running, he could just put them on the table to his left, leave his hands free for the rest of the evening, Gavin clutched the stems and crinkly paper the flowers were encased in a little tighter, shaking his head.

He hadn't bought them for any fund. "They're for Jo."

Jo felt warm and tingly. She wasn't sure any man, except maybe her dad, had ever given her flowers. Well, no, Roger had presented her with some crummy-looking flowers once. Only, she wasn't sure if it counted when said flowers had been taken out of a rubbish bin first, not actually bought for her. Michael had handed her an enormous centrepiece of flowers one night, but that had been during their wedding planning, for her to put on the table when they were getting ready for their rehearsal dinner. Did that count? Maybe not. Because he hadn't so much handed them to her as thrust them in her direction and said, "Here, take this." She was pretty sure they'd been fighting at the time. Wait, hang on, Tama had sent her a pair of yellow and pink roses when her art career really took off. Which had been really sweet of him. But that felt different. Not that it should. Gavin was just a friend, too.

Gavin's flowers were a bunch of orange lilies. Jo thought they were beautiful, vibrant like a sunset, a rich hue she knew from experience was tough to capture outside of nature. Even the paper versions of those flowers always looked dull and drab in comparison to the real thing.

With his pale skin, dark suit jacket, and purple hair, Gavin looked more like he should be carrying black roses, something more goth, but this contrast only made the orange of the lilies pop even more.

Jo suppressed the absurd urge to cry as she took them from him. "Thanks."

Jo drew in a long, steadying breath as she stared at the activewear she'd spread out on top of her unmade bed.

"It's a run, Josephine," she told herself. "Stop being crazy. It's just a run."

It wasn't like anything she'd set out was revealing, a pathetic attempt at being sexy. It was just regular old activewear.

But then, it wasn't like her to put this much thought into her clothes, no matter the occasion. That alone was making her feel like a nut. She'd gone on dates – relatively fancy dates – with guys before that had been easier to dress for than this casual morning trip to the park with Gavin Danes.

Christ.

Everything had been increasingly confusing since Gavin turned up. They'd been spending every day – well, evening, usually – after she got off work together. He waited by her car with a smile and sometimes a bag of doughnuts or a cup of steaming tea. They didn't talk about the obvious things they probably should have... How'd he get his ring back? How did he seem to remember, as he definitely hadn't when he was twelve and visiting New Zealand, how to speak Russian? What, actually, was he doing in Australia? Why was he here, with her? But they talked about everything else.

Everything and nothing else.

It had gotten to the point where Jo – try as she might to deny it – was leaping out of bed first thing in the morning already thinking about things she wanted to say to Gavin Danes later.

She was falling for him. She told herself she wasn't, but she didn't really believe it. She told herself over and over again he was too young for her, that if she seriously thought a guy who was, what, twenty, was trying to crack onto her, a forty-year-old woman, she had better get her head checked. He could get young, beautiful girls his own age; she'd seen that picture of the girl he'd gone to his prom with. She was bloody lovely. And was Jo stupid enough to believe, even if he did like her that way, if his childhood infatuation from their time in New Zealand had – rather than fade – deepened into real feelings, being with Gavin now would make up for – would somehow change – the loss of him when he'd been Nicholas?

She wasn't fourteen anymore.

She needed to stop believing in shit like that.

The past happened, except maybe where it didn't, and probably for a reason.

It had been twenty-six years.

The best thing to do was move the hell on.

Still, she hesitated over the activewear for a long, brain-numbing time – as nervous about donning these in front of Gavin Danes as she would have been about him seeing her in two-piece swimmers.

"Just pick something," she hissed through her teeth, shutting her eyes and sticking out her hand, waving it over the bed. "Ennie...meeeeniiieee... Minnneeeeyyy... Mo!" Her hand fell onto something polyester. She cracked open one eye. "Oh, shit, I can't wear that!" And she tossed it over her shoulder with an exasperated grunt.

Twenty minutes later, she pulled up in her Toyota in front of Gavin's hotel, an oversized white T-shirt pulled over the activewear that was already of the running-grandma variety.

He was waiting for her outside, in a sweatshirt and baggy trousers that seemed decently suited for running.

She wound down the window. "Hey." She reached up and, somewhat awkwardly, smoothed back the cloth headband holding her short curls in place. "You sure you're up for this? It's freezing." At least it was an excuse to keep the T-shirt on.

"Well, I got us hot coffee." He held up two steaming Styrofoam cups.

"You're a freaking angel."

He stared at the car for a half minute before shaking his head, stepping in front and then around, and reaching for the handle. "I'm still getting used to how you guys drive on the other side. I always expect the wheel on this side of the car."

She noticed he had a Buckeyes beanie on. "Oh, is that the same one you had in Wellington?" Then, correcting herself too quickly, she blurted, "No, what am I saying, that would be too small for your head now."

Gavin waggled his eyebrows at her. "Are you saying I have a big head?"

"No..." She waved her hand – it shook. "I just meant, you know, you were twelve, you've grown since then." Her cheeks flamed and she fumbled trying to put the car back into drive. "Your head is... You know, it's normal-sized... Um, for your age."

"It's not the same hat – the old one fell apart in the washing machine years ago."

"Right. Cool." Jo cleared her throat. "So, Blackwattle Bay work for you? It's near all the fish and chip shops. We could grab some after. If you're hungry. From running."

"Yeah, fine." He turned his head to hide his smile. So she'd noticed he'd grown – that was a plus.

Along the path, as they raced past scenic water-views and a seemingly endless length of short, brick wall, Jo – catching her breath – came to a stop under a tree, leaning one hand against the trunk.

She let out a low, wheezing puff when Gavin came up behind her. "Don't stop on my account, mate – I'm all right. You just keep going. I'll catch up."

But he didn't take off running, like she expected, or even jog slower to wait for her. He stood where he was, and – when she turned around – kissed her full on the mouth.

Eyes wide, Jo pulled back, gawking breathlessly. It hadn't been a long kiss, she'd ended it real fast, but it was long enough she felt the sweet electric rush she'd always associated with first love, with being a teenager. It was the kind of kiss she'd never gotten from anyone besides Nicholas; the kind of kiss she'd told herself was the way it was, felt the way it did, because she'd been a teenager and it had been new. Everything felt different the first time you did it. When you were old enough kissing could be routine, even when you weren't in a relationship for a while, you couldn't expect it to feel like it did when you were young and inexperienced.

Apparently, she'd been dead wrong.

Because she was forty, and kissing Gavin now felt like kissing Nicholas then, twenty-six years ago.

She wanted to feel happy about this discovery, instead she felt strangely wounded. What did it say about her, if she was hung up on one person all this time? Someone she couldn't have?

"Fuck. Why did you do that?"

He reeled back slightly. "I–" For her to be visibly upset... He had to ask, difficult though it was. "Jo, what's wrong? Do you have a boyfriend?" Is there someone else?

Jo shook her head, folding her arms across her middle. Her clammy T-shirt over the activewear felt downright icy now. "It's not that. It's not anything like that. I'm single."

"What, then?" His blue eyes were cloudy-grey with worry.

"Please just tell me you're not here for me," she rasped out, voice crackly with emotion. "Tell me I'm not the reason you came all this way."

He couldn't – she was.

"Gavin... You didn't seriously think...?" She trailed off. "Oh, God, you did."

He reached out and touched the side of her face. "I love you, Jo," he whispered. "I just wanted to be with you." She looked so dismal, over one kiss; it was heartrending. "What's bad about that?"