I laid in bed that night, thinking about Claire, wondering where she was. Part of me was waiting for a knock on the door, or for the phone to ring. I stared out the window, beyond the balcony rail, into the dark, hazy sky over Los Angeles. Just knowing that she was definitely out there, somewhere, was enough to make my heart race. There was no way that Amie had been wrong if Claire at least existed in this world still.

I wondered if she still looked the same as I remembered her, as she'd looked in 1975 rather than at any other time that I'd known her. She'd always been changing in the way that humans do naturally. Her features had grown, some had widened, others had shrunk and disappeared - like the smattering of freckles that had once sat across her button nose. Her eyes had grown wider and darker, and her scarlet hair that had once been fiery red had darkened into a crimson by the time we'd reached the mid-70's.

I hugged the comforter to my chest and buckled my knees up so they touched my stomach. My back was still sore from the fall, but the muscles had relaxed into their normal state of being slowly over the night. Now that it was three in the morning, I was almost back to normal.

Claire came, I thought, the word repeating over and over in my mind each time I dared to think about something -anything- other than her.

My eyelids felt heavy, but I was afraid to close them, afraid of missing another opportunity to collide with her, to pull her close and stop this craziness. If I fell asleep, I worried, I would wake up thirteen, months early, just to spite my own luck.

When I did sleep, it was through strange dreams whose meaning I could never guess. In one, I was microscopic and laying in a peatrie dish while AJ, dressed in a while lab coat, examined me using strange tweezers and peering through a microscope, musing about time and dimensions being interrupted by “this funny little creature”, as though I was a strange bug.

There were others, too, equally strange and seemingly without purpose. But one in particular, that horrorfied me beyond any dream I’ve ever had in my lifetime.

I was locked in a pitch black room, which was flooded with ankle deep water. There was nothing to see except a faint, pale blue light far, far above me in the dark that only cast enough light below for me to be aware I was moving. I ran in circles, water splashing, gasping for air. The walls were perfectly smooth and I kept bumping into them. I was screaming Claire’s name… And then, as if over a loud speaker, came Amie’s voice, “Well we are Time Watchers, after all, it only makes sense when you think about it…”

I awoke suddenly from that dream, in a pool of sweat. My sheets were soaked, my body covered as though I’d just stepped out of the shower, and I was shaking. Every part of my skin crawled and my bones felt weak, far away.

It was during the ensuing panic attack that there came a knock on my door. Ministry. The word shot through my head, as though I were filled with ice water. I felt as though I couldn’t move, so struck by fear of the mysterious dream and of the mysterious knocker.

The knocking continued, so finally I struggled to my feet and made my way to the door, still covered in sweat and shaking, and looked out the peephole in the door, fully expecting to see Dimitri Pyre in the hallway, looking back. But instead, it was Amie.

I opened the door her, my mind taking a moment to recognize that she, too, was disheveled and shaking. “Amie?” I asked.

Her eyes were full of tears, about to overflow onto her cheeks. “Nick,” she gushed, throwing herself through the door and into my arms.

I stood there, stunned, my arms wrapped limply around her as she sobbed into my chest. I felt my strength and sanity slowly returning – I was one of those people who always was able to push aside my own need and worries when someone else needed me. I rubbed her back softly in circles, trying to calm her cries. “What on earth is the matter, Amie?” I asked, perplexed.

“Abby,” she gasped into my shirt, “She’s—he could’ve saved her—he didn’t – and –“ A cold that felt like wet, icey netting fell over us, weighing down on us. After a long moment, while the pieces fell into place in my mind as to what had happened, Amie’s eyes met mine. “You’re right, Nick, it is murder to turn away.”



Amie stayed with me after that in the guest bedroom of the apartment. She couldn’t go back to Rodney in New York, she said, because he had been so callous. She described his careless air toward her granddaughter’s life, how he’d turned away as though Abby’s cries had been nothing more to him than the buzzing of a gnat. She sobbed every time she thought about it, and I struggled to comfort her. Amie, I realized, had never encountered unnatural loss.

After a few days had passed, we began discussing again the mentality behind the ministry’s view of human life. “I don’t understand, “Amie said, “Now that I’ve seen the careless, reckless way that their view causes us to treat the humans, I… I can’t understand why I didn’t see it that way before. You were right the whole time, Nick.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” I told her sternly, “It’s not your fault you didn’t see it. I’m convinced that what James said is true, being around other Time Watchers will cure one’s sensitivity to the human need for rescue. I’ve never been around anyone but humans, of course my sensitivity to them is going to be higher. You, though, you’ve been around Time Watchers since you were young.”

“What are we going to do from here, Nick?” Amie asked me one afternoon, a hopeless look on her face, “If we ignore it we become murderers, if we rescue them, we get tracked down by the ministry.”

“We’ll just have to save lives,” I answered, “And be ready to stand in opposition to them when the ministry comes knocking.”