Sylvia was waiting for Anya outside the office. Her hair had gone white, save for one defiantly lingering streak of copper. Her face seemed to have hardened rather than wrinkling, leaving her cheeks like the stretched hide of a drum. The biggest change was her shoulders, once broad, now oddly slumped. "You aren't Sylvia," Anya said at a glance. "Not this Sylvia."

"And you aren't this Anya," Sylvia said. "We came through together. You've had time to see what kind of world you grew up in. Why don't we walk over to meet Papa?"

Sylvia supported herself with a cane as they walked. "I don't think either of us are really here," Anya said. "Bond is just letting us kind of ride along. With just a little push, I can take control. If I let go, this me just goes back to doing her own thing."

"That's what I've always thought history is like," Sylvia said. Her voice had a pronounced rasp. "People go with the flow. Wars wait to happen. Forests want to burn. Now and then, someone with enough strength manages to change course just a little."

They paused at memorial park for the Hugarian students of Eden. There was a sculpture based on one of Anya's designs, of two boys with their legs together as if in a three-legged race supporting a girl on their shoulders. "This place can't really be real, anyway," Anya said. "Or stay real. Once we go back, we can't not do something different."

"I don't think so," Sylvia said. "You may have changed things when you went to the past, but this is different. When I look back, I can remember being here. Once we return, we won't be able to change it. We won't want to. Would you?"

"The me I am now loves Georgie," Anya said. "And I would die for our kids. Even if I wasn't happy, well, nobody blew this world up."

"Then you know why you can't go back again," Sylvia said. Her old voice returned, as cold and hard as steel. "It would be like murdering your own children. It could be murdering the whole world."

"If you're right, it won't matter," Anya said. She led the way to the restaurant where Papa already waited. As they entered, she heard her own voice over the TV, singing the Westalia farewell with Rebecca at an event the previous afternoon. Uncle Yuri and Aunt Chloe were already seated at the table. For a moment, Anya was jarred to see Chloe holding a baby. "Oh, where's my head?" Yuri said. "You haven't met our grandson- Yuri! Isn't he the sweetest, most beautiful boy?" He held up the infant like a trophy.

"Oh, stop," Chloe said. She firmly took the child back. "Seriously, I just got him to sleep."

"Aw, I'm just gonna hold him!" Yuri said. He jostled his wife, who withdrew the child in warning. They both cooed when the infant yawned. Chloe set him in a ready stroller.

"I bet you're keeping busy with yours," she said. "You waited a while to have a third."

Anya mustered a mischievous smile. "You could say the train came early," she said. Georgie sat down beside her, looking quite happy. She took his hand.

Papa seated himself. "I'm glad all of you could make it," he said. "It would have been nice to have this yesterday night like we used to, but I know how busy it gets. By the way, Donovan sends his regrets." He took Sylvia's hand as she sat down at his side.

Papa's face grew more somber. "People talk about the scars of grief," he said. "I decided a long time ago that it is really like a covered well. You can walk right over it. With enough time, grass can grow on top of it. But the well is still there. Sometimes, you step on it, and your foot breaks through."

Anya nodded. It was a speech she had heard him deliver two years earlier. "It happened to me when I was at the hospital, two months ago," he said. "There's a nurse who wears her hair the way Yor used to. She wasn't even born when the peace was signed. I saw her go by, and I- I called out her name." He steepled his hands.

"I was at city hall," Yuri said. "I bring flowers once a week to keep the place looking nice. Milly still works there. She asked about little Yuri. I said he looks just like an old picture of me. It was of Yor, holding me. They… they say I broke a desk."

"I had a meeting with the Blackbell Group," George said. "One of their junior executives kept asking for my autograph. He wanted me to sign as the Eden Boy. I punched him."

Anya took his hand. Her memory told her it had happened three months earlier. She was surprised when she spoke. "I broke my old rocket today," she said. "I don't even know why." She gave George an awkward glance.

To the surprise of all, Sylvia spoke. "I was at the WISE memorial in Westalia," she said. "I found Fiona's name. I started looking for the names of other agents that Loid or I had trained… The attendants said I was screaming."

Papa took her hand. "It's all right," he said. "The greatest victory we won is to mourn without hiding it."

"Yeah," Anya said. "It must be nice."

The conversation went on, and soon they were laughing. When little Yuri awoke, he was carefully passed around, to much admiration. "It's funny," Yuri said. "We were going to name our first after me if we had a son. We talked about it with all the boys we did have. It just didn't feel the same."

The talk turned to Anya's still new arrival, and then to her relationship with Georgie. "It really started with our sleepovers," she said, with a sidelong glance at her husband. "We would hold each other, just like we did that day, and I told him I wished we could be in the same bed the rest of our lives."

"Always a risky decision," Chloe said with a smile. "Yuri told me about covering for you two, and your Papas. When you finally got married, everyone was sure you had one in the pipe."

Papa smiled at that. "Mr. Glooman and I petitioned the state to let them marry before they were 18, so they could share a bed without any more fear of repercussions," he said. "We both agreed it was better than keeping them apart. We knew they would be responsible. It made me even prouder that I raised you, Anya."

"Well, we waited till she was ready," Georgie said. "Didn't we?"

"Yes," Anya said. She added pointedly, "He never even brought it up."

The lunch wound down, and Anya prepared to return to work. "Listen," she said to Papa, "why don't you come over tonight?"

"As long as it's not any trouble," he said. At her further assurance, he agreed. As the group filed out, Anya and Sylvia found themselves at the rear. They made their way back to the park.

"Fock it all," Sylvia said. "You want to know what that proposal was? What Marten told his men they would do: Launch the interdiction munitions, spike one to make it look like an accident, and keep the leading families from grabbing their kids and fleeing the city. I told them why it wouldn't work."

Anya only stared at the children who played freely. "You know something else?" her stepmother said. "Once the treaties were signed, I was going to bring one of our special items to their celebration and take all of them with me." She wiped a tear from her eye. "But your Papa stopped me. Even after I told him everything, he said he still loved me. He told me it would be our one good thing."

Anya carefully read what she could of Sylvia's mind. "I believe you," she said. She hurried as fast as she could away from her stepmother's steady gaze.