Chapter 1: January 10, 2004

The next time Rory Daniels met Megan Green was in 2004, after he had graduated and gotten a job near the college campus he had attended. On an early Saturday in January, he had the house to himself, which he took advantage of by making some snacks and settling down to watch some sports.

The game had just gotten started when there was a knock at the door. He ignored it at first, more interested in the action on the screen.

There was another knock, then another. He was dismayed to miss some of the game—wishing whoever it was could wait for a commercial break—but the knocking was insistent, so with a groan he got out of his couch to oblige it.

When he opened the door he was very surprised to see a young woman there, thoroughly incensed and several months pregnant. She appeared to be a college student still—he’d guess probably a few years younger than him—with shoulder-length brown hair. She wore a long-sleeve red shirt and jeans that were unbuttoned with a pregnancy extender. As far as he knew, he’d never seen her before in his life.

“Uh, hello?” he asked, thoroughly confused.

“About time!” she said angrily, stepping up into his face. “What took you so long? I’ve already walked halfway across town and you make me wait on your doorstep?”

He looked at her, thoroughly confused, and taking a step back into the house. “Do I ... know you?”

That did very little to reduce the firebrand he had on his hands. “Know me? You’re the one who gave me this!” She pointed at her nicely-developed belly. He guessed four or five months along.

“What?” he asked, taken aback. “I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

That seemed to cut through her fog of rage for just a moment, and her face softened. “Wait a moment,” she said, glancing down at her wrist where there was, in fact, no watch there, before looking back at him. “What’s the date?”

“Uh...” he thought a moment. “January tenth?” What a weird question!

“No, the year!” Even weirder.

“Uh... 2004,” he replied, having to think a moment because it had recently changed. He was still baffled. “Is this—”

“Fuck!” she exclaimed loudly, shaking her head as she brought up a hand to rub her forehead. “Okay, sorry, let me back up a moment. I know this is probably weird, but can I come in? I can explain, I promise.”

Rory thought about it for a few moments. On one hand, he seemed to have a crazy college student on his hands, and he really wanted to get back to watching sports. On the other, he wanted to hear her explanation, and knew she wouldn’t leave until he did.

Curiosity won, and he opened the door further, stepping in and gesturing for her to do so. She did, looking around, her gaze lingering for an extra minute on the wall as though expecting something to hang there. “God, I forgot how much this place was a bachelor pad. Hey, does Doctor Williams still live here?”

He blinked. How the hell did she know—

“You know, Doctor Tyrone Williams? Tall black guy you roomed with at one point when he was finishing out his physics doctorate? Ends up being best man at our wedding, possibly even winning a Nobel prize and...” She paused, looking at him, and cocked her head. “Okay, sorry, you haven’t met me yet, have you?”

“Can you ... start at the beginning?” he asked, mostly just confused. “If I haven’t met you, how is the baby mine? How are you so sure?”

“It’s yours because you fucked me and knocked me up,” she said, then shook her head. “Okay, from your perspective, you will fuck me and knock me up. Will have fucked me? Oh, I can never keep it straight!”

Rory paused, still feeling utterly steamrolled by this girl who was a full head shorter than him talking a mile a minute and not making any sense. “Uh...”

“Right, first time. There’s a first time for anything. Okay, so, I’m from the future. Or, your future.” She rolled her eyes into her head, as though doing some mental math. “Yeah, definitely your future, and also mine, if it’s January 2004. You haven’t knocked me up yet, physical evidence notwithstanding.”

“The ... future?”

“Yeah. In—goddess what is it, ten months or so?—in November 2004, there’s going to be an accident at the university where timey-wimey something or the other happens and I become unstuck in time. Wait, sorry, has Doctor Who done the timey-wimey episode yet? That was what, Tennant? He was the best until Whittaker, but this early, I don’t even know if they’ve even done the revival yet aaaaaaaand you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about at all do you?”

“I don’t think so?” he said, his head spinning. “And wait, accident?”

“I’m getting tired of standing, what with the being all knocked up thanks to you not having had your vasectomy yet, so do you mind if we maybe sit down?” Without waiting for his response, she ambled over and plopped down on the chair, realizing that there was a game on. “Oh hey, is this the one you told me about, where it’s a nail-biter game that goes into like double overtime or something, before the underdog team does an amazing play to win the game that shocks everyone or something like that? Some sort of last-minute interception or something?”

Seeing his continuing-to-be-befuddled expression, she rolled her eyes at herself. “Right, spoilers. And I bet you don’t get that reference yet, either. Goddess! I knew this was coming eventually, I just was hoping it wasn’t quite at this time when I was this horny and...” She shook her head again.

In a bit of a daze, Rory walked over and sat on the couch, sinking into the cushions. “Double overtime?”

“Yeah, just wait and see. Anyways, we’re going to have to have sex before I leave, so take your time.”

That got his attention. “What?”

She rolled her eyes. “Side effect of the accident. Eventually they’ll figure out a thing to stablize me so I don’t time travel as much, but that’ll come once I’m preggo with the twins, I think your future self told me at some point?” Another head shake. “I can never remember.”

“No really,” he said, his voice very small. “Can you please start at the beginning again, and slow down?”

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Sorry. Part of the problem with time-traveling is that you start to forget who knows what when.”

He folded his hands together in a tent, and tilted them to point the tent at her. “Yeah, see, that’s where I’m still getting stuck. Time travel?”

“No, unstuck,” she said, grinning at him. “Oof.” She laid a hand on her belly. “He’s kicking right now, do you want to feel?”

“I’ll uh ... pass, I think?” He was getting very weirded out by this, and started wondering if this was actually a giant prank. Tyrone wasn’t the sort of guy to do this sort of thing, though.

“No, you don’t get to pass, not with this baby you saddled me with,” she said, pushing herself out of the chair. “Here, let me come to you.” She ambled over to the couch and sat down next to him, leaning into him, like it was a very usual thing for them to cuddle on the couch. “God, no wonder you got rid of—uh, get rid of? Will get rid of? Whatever—this thing; it’s not comfortable at all. Anyways, you need to feel.” Without ceremony she reached over and grabbed one of his hands, and before he could react she had it pressed against her belly.

There were definite kicks, and he felt a shiver go up his spine. She was so warm! “So, unstuck?”

“Yes, okay. From the beginning. You were born on April first, nineteen eighty, so you’re what, going to turn twenty-four this year?”

“Mmhmm,” he said, nodding.

“And I was born on September second, nineteen eighty-three. Right now I’m a sophomore in college, right over there,” she waved in the direction of the college campus. “Well, okay, no.” She pointed at herself. “Right now I am a senior in college, but my past self—which is actually the still-stuck-in-time version of my self—is a sophomore in college right over there. With me so far?”

“No, but keep going,” he said, shaking his head. She let go of his hand, and he pulled it back from her belly.

She laughed. “Some things never change. Anyway, later this year—mid-November, but I can’t tell you the date just in case you try to break causality and avoid it—there’s going to be an accident at the university. Something in a physics lab, but they’ll call it a boiler explosion. From what I understand, it causes some sort of chroniton flux. And I have these things Doctor Williams calls time mites in my body that interact with that flux in some weird way that causes me to sometimes randomly jump around in time. Unstuck.”

“Time mites?” He nodded, still trying to keep up, really trying to determine if this was a giant prank or not. Meanwhile on the TV, the momentum in the game had shifted once again as the two teams continued to play. It looked like an exciting game, but he was only able to halfway pay attention.

She waved her hand. “I’m not the scientist, that’s Doctor Williams’ job. I do know I didn’t have them in high school because in the future I got a period blood sample from my past self—well, okay, I can’t actually meet my past self without causing all of space-time to collapse, so I had to go through the trash which was not fun let me tell you, and is still super gross—and brought it back to the future where they figured that out—but I had them when the Accident happened so I had to get them sometime in-between. Doctor Williams says you gave them to me, probably because I gave them to you.”

“Isn’t that a—”

“Ontological paradox? Yeah, I don’t know, especially as you’re not unstuck in time. Time travel’s weird. Anyway.”

He kept glancing between her and the TV, continuing to watch the game’s momentum shifting. “Uh-huh.”

“So this jumping to some other point in time is really weird, because I can’t control it; I can be in the middle of doing almost anything. Like this time, I was in 2006, looking up some old newspaper articles at the library about a local triple murder, and then was walking back to my dorm during an unseasonably warm day when pop, I got unstuck and here I am in 2004.” She said, snapping her fingers as she described getting unstuck. “And what’s even weirder about the whole thing is that the only way to un-trigger it and for me to go back to my original time is for me to have an orgasm.”

“An orgasm.” He was very skeptical, looking over at her to show it on his face.

“Yeah, I don’t know why—something with how the time mites interact with the brain or something like that. Anyways, after having an orgasm, somewhere between five to sixty minutes later—after the last orgasm if I have several, it turns out—I pop back to my original time, no harm no foul.” She put a hand on his thigh. “So we usually just solve this by having sex, and then I pop back after a while.”

He pulled away from her, sliding into the corner of the couch. “Whoa, what do you mean by ‘usually’?” He really wondered if this was a prank.

“I mean, when I come by at least. I usually get unstuck in the dorms or whatever, and just deal with myself there. Same if I’m out shopping or something—that can get awkward, but I’ve learned to manage. And if I’m on my period, it really sucks, let me tell you.” She smirked, glancing down at her belly. “Hasn’t been a problem for a couple of months, though.”

“And we just...”

“Fuck? Yeah. You’re usually up for a quickie if nothing else.” She smiled at him, pulling a leg onto the couch to sit so she could face him. “This is the most reluctant I’ve ever seen you—but I guess you also just met me from your perspective, so that makes sense.” She sidled over. “But I am so freaking horny, and you always turn me on, so why don’t we just have a little fun?”