Chapter 4: June 17, 2004

The next time Rory Daniels met Megan Green, it was in June 2004. He was in his room one afternoon, reading one of his usual forums, generally relaxing on a day off work. Tyrone was out, on campus teaching a class and working on his research.

Suddenly her voice came from the bathroom. “Goddess damn it!”

Rory jumped, startled at the sudden noise, then his brain processed what he had heard. He quickly pulled away from the desk and opened the door to his room. The bathroom door stood open, Megan’s voice coming from within.

“I set down the thing for one moment and what happens?”

Cautiously, Rory stepped down the hall, peeking into the bathroom. She was standing there, naked and wet. “What thing?”

She spun around, surprised, and he got a good view of her naked body. She was older, now, with a bit of paunch to her filled-out body. Not that she was fat or anything, but the stretch marks on her abdomen spoke to why. Her figure was much more hourglass-like than it had been in her youth. Her hair was cut shorter, and she had a gravitas to how she held herself.

This was Megan the MILF.

“Oh, hey, Rory,” she replied nonchalantly, then tilted her head. “Wow, I forgot how young you used to look. It’s been a while since I’ve jumped back this far.” She smiled at him. “You’re looking good. Anyway, when is it and can I get a towel?”

“June something or other, 2004,” he said, before ducking out of the doorway to grab a towel from the linen closet in the hall. He handed it to her, and she began to towel herself off. “I can find out the exact date if you—”

“No, it’s fine.” She began to pat down her hair. “I’m not going to be here for long, just after I dry off I’m going to—” she paused, glancing at the sink. “Ah fuck, that’s right.” She looked back at him. “Okay, so it might be a little longer than I expected.” She frowned a moment. “Wait a moment, June 2004? That’s pre-Accident, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

Her eyes rolled back into her head as she thought. “Okay, so that means it’s also pre-vasectomy and—ah, well, that makes sense now. I’d always wondered how this was going to happen, especially with the Anchor and—” Her gaze flipped back to him. “Right, you were asking about that.” She wrapped the towel around herself and stepped out of the bathroom, heading to his bedroom, taking a moment to peek into the living room. “Goddess, what a bachelor pad! Okay, so the Anchor,” she closed the door to his room—he had followed her, of course–and sat down, naked, in his chair, looking over at his computer. “Tsk tsk, looking at Facebook?”

“What’s Facebook?” he asked, confused.

“Oh, right, spoilers. It’s just been around so long that I forgot it showed up when I was in college. It’s just this website that’s going to completely—actually, no, spoilers, and I can’t even tell you about the movie I guess. And I was talking about the Anchor, so you probably want to know about that instead, right?”

“Uh, sure.” He sat down on the edge of his bed, his cock growing hard from looking at her naked form, despite there being nothing sexual in the topic at hand.

She folded her legs up, crossing them, displaying her pubic bush prominently. “Okay, so eventually Tyrone figured out—will figure out? Something like that—the instability in my time mites and the chronitons flux in the local area, and finds a way to stabilize it. It’s still a prototype device right now, but when I wear it, it cuts down on my getting unstuck—and also has a thing that lets me jump back without the requisite orgasm.”

He nodded. “Like a very black watch?” She blinked a few times, as though confused he’d know that, and he continued. “I uh ... encountered a future-you that had one on her wrist.”

“Hm,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “Okay, that’s probably spoilers, but at least I don’t have any actual control over it so we should be okay. But yes, that’s about what it is. I took it off to shower, and, well,” she gestured at her naked body in his chair. “And we’re early enough in time that I won’t have any outfits hanging around to put on.”

“Is this a usual thing?” he wondered. “You popping in naked?”

“It’s not like I walk around naked, usually,” she replied with a shrug. “But this isn’t the first time this has happened, no. Damned inconvenient is what it is. But hey, I’ll take a bit of time away from the kids for a while; you have no idea how quiet this house sounds to me right about now.”

“Quiet?”

She laughed. “Kids are noisy, love. You’ll learn soon enough.” She sighed, smiling, her eyes closed. “Goddess, I almost want to bask in this for a while and just hang out with you. We don’t get as much time together now as I’d like, and doing a Netflix and chill night—wait, that’s probably not the right slang right now is it?”

“Netflix? Isn’t that the DVD mailing service?” he wondered.

She laughed again. “Oh there’s so much to come in your future! Do you have anything rented with them or whatever?”

He shook his head. “There’s a Blockbuster I could go rent one from if you were interested...”

“There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. No, actually, I’m going to be hungry soon, so maybe we could get some food or something or—hey! Is Bamboo Wok still around?” Her face lit up.

“Yeah, but you’re naked.”

“That doesn’t keep me from eating. I’ll just borrow some of your clothes, if that’s okay. You’ll get them back; I’m definitely not getting out of here without you taking them off me first.”

The twinkle in her eye made him just a little uncomfortable. He wanted to have sex with her, of course, but there was a difference to her aggressive edge this time around. This Megan was much older than any other Megan he’d encountered; what was their relationship like that late in time?

She seemed to sense his hesitation. “Why don’t you go pick some food up? I can entertain myself around here for a while, get myself re-acquainted with what you were like before we met.”

“Uh, sure, I guess,” he said, getting off the bed and starting to collect his things. It was a little early for dinner, but who knows what time of day it was for her. Actually, it made him wonder. “So if you get unstuck before breakfast or something, do you look for breakfast food, or do you just eat whatever’s available?”

“Whatever’s available,” she replied. “I had to learn not to be too picky, especially once we entered the Spaghetti Years.”

“Spaghetti Years?” He patted his pockets, making sure his wallet, keys, and cell phone were secure in them.

“Not because we ate a lot of it, but because—well, okay, there’s a reason Doctor Williams—sorry, you think of him as Tyrone, don’t you?—there’s a reason he tried making the Anchor for me, because I was really getting loose and floating around in time a lot, and it was getting to be too much for me, for you, and especially for the kids. No one had any idea if I’d be around for anything–or if I was, which me it would be, because I would like, okay, it’s Monday morning. I jump out of time, but five minutes later your time, me from a week later would show up and we’d have a day then when the kids are taking naps or otherwise occupied we have a quickie in the afternoon and I pop back and then an hour later your-time me from a week earlier will show up and spend the night and we’ll have nice morning sex and I’ll go back then the me from the actual time will arrive, and we just start doing this all the time and ... well, there’s a reason I never get a job.”

“That sounds ... difficult.”

“You have no idea. At least you get linear time. I’m stuck bouncing around in time like a pinball. The Anchor smooths that out, and then as the chroniton flux slowly reduces in magnitude in general, it’s less and less of an issue. I’m a little unstuck the rest of my life, of course, but I can at least be a little more normal.”

“You wanted food?” he asked, smirking at her.

She waved a hand at him. “Go, my gorgeous little boy toy, and fetch me a meal. You’ve figured out what I like, right?”

“Yeah, you told me—” he started, then blanched.

“Oh, that explains a lot!” she said cheerfully. “Probably for a lot of things?”

He nodded.

Her eyes rolled back. “Okay, that’s very good to know.” Back to looking at him, waving her hand again. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

Not wanting to get involved in another conversation with her before she got too hungry and therefore temperamental, he quickly excused himself and disappeared out the front door to get food. Hot braised pork for her, of course.

He was back quickly with food—the restaurant wasn’t very busy in the mid-afternoon—and when he got back, she was wearing one of his older t-shirts and some shorts, sitting on the couch in the living room, flipping through channels on the TV. “Welcome back!” she said, smiling at him. She turned off the TV and stood up. “I am starving—so you’re back just in time.”

He smiled at her, kicked off his shoes, and brought the steaming food to the kitchen. She followed, getting plates, silverware, and drinks—just waters—as he unpacked the bag. Once she sat down and opened her to-go boxes, she took a big sniff in. “Oh goddess, I forgot how good this smelled. I swear, every time I come back this early, I make sure to get some of this. Still the best Chinese food I’ve ever had.” Without further ado, she served herself and began stuffing her face.

“I’m going to miss them when they’re gone,” he said, opening his own to-go boxes and plating the food. “You at least can keep going back.”

“You’ll reap the benefits of that as well. Not every time I jumped back did I run into you,” she said. “Anyways, enough about time travel—I have spent waaay too much time lately explaining it and going over it over and and over again with Tyrone. Let’s have a normal married parent conversation, like about how your son recently told me that he wants—actually, that’s probably spoilers, isn’t it?”

He shrugged, his mouth full of food.

“Okay, then why don’t you tell me how work is these days?”

He swallowed, and started discussing it. He actually kind of relished having someone listen to him—Tyrone was never that interested—even though she mostly just nodded along and agreed with him.

From there, the conversation moved a bit more naturally. She was genuinely interested in his thoughts and ideas, asking lots of questions about himself, focusing a lot on the sort of person he was while so young.

And he returned the favor, starting to build a picture in his head of what this woman was actually like as a person, and not just someone who would show up occasionally to have sex or whatever. There were plenty of things she declined to talk about, but there were still plenty of broad strokes, and plenty of television and movies she could talk about in the same way that one would talk about anything someone had never seen.

After they were done with their early dinner, they returned to the living room, where she insisted on snuggling up with him on the couch—it was weird with her wearing his clothes, baggy on her body, but also kind of sexy, in a way—while they watched a movie from his collection that she hadn’t (somehow) seen.

It felt all very normal, even though by actual ages, she was probably a decade older than him.

As they finished the movie, and she got up to stretch, he wondered. “So, whenabouts are you from? If you can tell me that.”

“Hm,” she said, rolling her eyes up as she thought. “No, I know the year easily, I’m just trying to figure out if I can tell you, and I think I can, so long as you don’t remind me to keep the Anchor on always.” She looked down at him, smiling. “I’m from 2012.”

“You’re younger than I thought.”

“Keep in mind that I’m unstuck in time. I’m probably older than the year would suggest.” She glanced at a clock on the wall. “Say, any idea when Tyrone’ll be home? Maybe text him and ask him to maybe get home pretty late or something?”

“Text?”

She rubbed her forehead. “Sorry. You’ll get it, eventually. Eh, don’t worry about it; I wouldn’t mind seeing him looking young, either.” She wandered out of the room to use the bathroom.

As she was in there, the front door opened and Tyrone came in. “Hey,” he said, his voice heavy with defeat.

“Hey there,” Rory said, waving. “Uh, fair warning, Megan dropped in.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” he said. “You eat yet?”

“Yeah, she wanted Bamboo Wok, and I got you some.”

“I’m not going to complain about that!” he laughed, though still a little under the weather.

“Hey, everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just can’t make the equations work out.” He shrugged. “Like, I know they have to—I have living, breathing proof that’s stopped by a couple of times. But they just can’t add up all the way.”

Megan walked back into the living room at that point. “Oh, hey Doctor Williams. Goddess, you also look so young.”

“Doctor?” he asked, confused for a moment, then shook his head. “Never mind. Hi again, Megan. When are you from this time?”

“Late 2012,” she replied, obviously tensing up a bit. “I can’t tell you more.”

“Total chronitonic reversal, I get it.” He nodded. “Anyway, there’s an order of Bamboo Wok in there with my name on it, and I am hungry.”

“Hard day at the lab?”

“Nothing seems to work out. It’s really frustrating, because I know it will sooner or later.” He shook his head. “Food,” he said, then began walking to the kitchen.

She folded her arms and followed him. Curious, Rory got up to also follow. “You told me about this problem,” she said, walking into the kitchen as he got his food from the fridge, plated it, and put it in the microwave. “Not this one specifically, but that it was one of the problems with the whole Sphere Protocol, and if it weren’t for how entwined you are in the entire thing—you’re the key to one of the Pivots, after all—it’d be better to keep you in the dark and not have to invoke it.” She paused. “The fact that you recognized me means that I have invoked it, right?” She rolled her eyes into her head. “Because you first met me when I had Xavier with me, but I still haven’t actually done the invocation for that, so that checks out.” She looked back at him.

He nodded, plate in hand, standing while eating. “Yeah, though this is the first I’ve heard of a Pivot.”

“Don’t worry about it, then. That’s my past, obviously your future,” she said, almost a little too fast.

“Sphere Protocol?” Rory wondered.

She glanced at him. “That’s how he knew I was a time traveler. Will know. His future self gave me a message that only he would recognize as being from himself, which I will give to him in your past.”

“Ow,” Rory said, bringing a hand to his forehead.

“Time travel’s a bitch, ain’t it?” Tyrone said with a laugh. “Didn’t Douglas Adams have a few jokes about that, with different tenses and whatever?”

“Don’t know; I’ve never read it,” Megan replied. “Horrible gap, I know, but I just couldn’t get into the books after the movie was so bad.”

“Movie?” both Tyrone and Rory said at the same time.

She rubbed her forehead. “The problem with going back this far. I guess it hasn’t come out yet. Next thing I know I’m going to give away how many X-Men movies they’ve made.”

“We were just discussing that earlier, I thought?” Rory wondered.

“There are different things I can talk about with each of you,” she replied, shaking her head. “Anyways, Tyrone, we’re in June 2004, right?”

He finished chewing and swallowed. “Yes. Why?”

She looked at him, her voice low. “Aluminum.”

“What?” His eyes danced around as he thought about it. “Wait. Aluminum?” Back to looking at her. “There’s...”

“That’s all I know,” she replied with a shrug. “Cryptic message-passing through time.”

“An ontological paradox,” he said with a sigh. “How the hell does that even work? Also, what the hell is up with aluminum, and why would it—oh.” His eyes widened. “That. That actually might make sense. The photoconductivity just—”

“Spoilers,” she said with a laugh, holding up a hand to ward him off. “And even though I can remember a lot of these random things, I still don’t get what’s up with time travel. I leave that to you.”

“Yeah, I just.” He glanced between the two of them, then nodded. “Alright. After I’m done eating I’m going to head back to the lab and run some numbers. It’ll be a couple of hours, and I’m guessing you’ll be gone, Megan?”

“That’s the plan,” she said with a laugh, glancing back at Rory. “I’ve mostly been basking in not being pestered by kids all day. I think this was the first time I watched a movie without interruption and without falling asleep in months.”

Tyrone raised an eyebrow. “Not when you get unstuck normally?”

Megan drew in a sharp breath, and Rory figured it was probably too close to spoilers about the Anchor. He decided to step in to the conversation again. “Watching movies isn’t the only thing we like to do together.”

He nodded, finishing his dinner. “Okay, I get it.” He placed the plate on the counter and wiped his lips with a spare napkin. “Speaking of, I’ll get out of your way. Give you privacy and all.” He glanced at Megan. “And I’m guessing there’s a reason you’re wearing his clothes?”

“I popped in naked,” she said with a shrug. “Happens sometimes.”

“Hilarious. Rory, you should get your girlfriend some clothes, just in case that happens again.”