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Author's Chapter Notes:

Stuck in the middle.

Julie paced the floor in her apartment waiting for Nick to return She couldn't believe she agreed to do what Howie and Kevin asked her to do. She still saw their faces in her mind when she closed her eyes.

“We have a feeling he's contacted you.” Howie had continue after asking her to play along. “You have knowledge beyond what you should have acquired on your own.”

Julie protested. “I found out about The Library on my own, I found Charles and Brian on my own. I even found a way to make it back to my own time with all my memories. I am a resourceful girl.” She didn't know why she suddenly felt the urge to protect Nick, even though she felt what they said was true and he was guilty, he was the rogue volunteer.

“I brought you back here because you were asking about a rogue volunteer and Brian's mission while 'in' the library. I'm going to ask again, how did you get in?” Kevin narrowed his eyes at her. She felt as if he didn't fully believe what she was saying, she couldn't blame them, she couldn't give them explanations for half of what they asked. Still, she believed him about the impossible early on, why couldn't he believe her now?

She narrowed her eyes back at him, “I opened the door,” she answered her voice stoic. She was starting to wonder how she ever developed feelings for him he was infuriating.

Howie held up his hands to silence the duo. “Kevin, let me handle the questions. Julie the point is you were questioning things that only volunteers or the rogue volunteer himself are privy to. Since none of the volunteers would purposely contact you after you'd been returned, and give you this information we concluded that Nick has contacted you.”

“Yes, he contacted me asking for my help. He said he was going to get me a device.” She shrugged.

“We are not sure what his intentions with you are, but you are one of Kevin's cases so that automatically makes us wonder what he is planning. We have no idea how many volunteers he has working on his side but we suspect there are a few within the project itself gathering information.” Howie informed her. Perhaps this was the reason for the little room, a secure area to speak.

“So you want me to continue to act like we have not had this conversation?” She asked.

Kevin and Howie both nodded but Howie spoke. “We know this is asking a lot of you, but you are our best chance.”

“Why can't you get another volunteer to pretend to defect and inform on him?” She asked. She was really getting sick of being used.

“We fear that if a volunteer approaches him he will be automatically suspicious and it would take too long for them to convince him that he was on their side and to get any pertinent information from him and even then he could feed false information in an attempt to flush a spy out.” Howie shrugged. “You are our best bet. He doesn't think you've had contact with us and we believe he wants so badly to get you on his side that he will ignore any warning bells he might get with a volunteer. It's a lot to ask of you, I know, and if we had another option we wouldn't put you through this.”

“What do I get if I help?” Julie asked crossing her arms. She was not about to put herself purposely into danger and not get anything out of it.

“You can keep the past five years of your life,” Howie sounded harsh for the first time during their entire conversation.

Julie shook her head. “Threaten to take away my life and I will join with him, because with him I know I will keep the memories.”

“What makes you think we will let you leave here if you don't agree to this?” Howie asked, the harsh tone still in his voice. Julie stared him down, neither wanting to budge on their stance.

Julie could see out of the corner of her eye that Kevin was just watching the two of them, looking back and forth between Howie and herself. She chanced a brief glance in his direction, their eyes meeting for a moment. It was all she needed.

“I'll do it,” she sighed in resignation.

Howie grinned from ear to ear, happy that he'd won out. “Thank you.” He stood and turned to leave. “Kevin will be your contact since you are familiar with him already. I'll leave him to give you any more information you might need.”

One look from that man and here she was throwing herself into danger. She was sure his eyes were pleading with her to accept. Why would he want her to accept this mission, she only had a couple of hints to Nick's anger and she was sure it could get a lot worse.

“Julie,” She could hear Nick calling from outside the door.

“Showtime,” she muttered as she opened the door and smiled. “So glad to see you have given up on sneaking up on me and used the door for once.”

Nick laughed and ruffled her hair. “I have the papers here for you to fill out.” He handed her the papers and the first item she saw was 'describe your first jump.' “And here is your device.” He handed her the wristwatch looking device and watched as she put it on.

“Now don't lose that or you will be stuck in whatever time you were in. Chances of getting rescued are slim.”

“Wouldn't you be able to research and look for me in the history books in The Library?” She asked playfully.

Nick's eyes felt like fire as he glared at her. “I don't recall mentioning The Library to you, how do you know about it?”

Julie felt her heart beating rapidly in her chest, but then she remembered how she first heard about it. “Kevin mentioned it to me when he first found me.” She watched Nick's face go from angry to relieved in a manner of seconds. “You seem on edge,” she moved closer to him and started to rub his shoulders.

She relaxed more when she heard him moan. “I needed that, thanks. This whole mission has me on edge. I keep thinking that the rogue, that Brian, is on to me and is trying to get to me through my friends and loved ones. He took her hands in his and stared into her eyes. “Are you ready?”

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yes, we need to have you practice using your device so you know exactly how it works.” He grinned playfully at her, “Unless you had something else in mind,” he leaned down and kissed her gently.

Despite what she knew about Nick, despite what she was there to do she couldn't help it when her body shuddered in response to his kiss. She leaned into him more opening her mouth slightly to allow his tongue inside. The look in Kevin's eyes flashed through her mind and she pulled away in response.

“Sorry,” she apologized to Nick. “We should really get started anyway right?”

Nick nodded in agreement. “Yes, lots to learn.” They sat down on the couch next to each other as Nick started to explain the basics of the device. “The outside dials control the month and date that you want to travel to. It's pretty self explanatory, outside dial has numbers one through twelve, inside dial one through thirty-one.”

His head was bent so he didn't notice Julie look up at him quizzically. She probably could have figured this device out on her own, it didn't seem that complicated at all. She knew he was going to talk about the two knobs on the outer rim controlled the year which was on the face. You turned it until you got to the year you wanted. The big button on the opposite side of that, well that was the one she remembered Kevin pushing when they came back to 2012.

“That's the dial, that's easy. But you should know that every day you spend in another time, counts as one day of your life in your regular time.” Nick was looking up at her now.

She caught herself before she mentioned the fact that he managed to manipulate the device so he could be gone years but seem like only a couple of days, instead she decided to ask about it. “Couldn't you just turn the watch back to the day before and make it look like you were only gone a couple of hours?”

“You could, but then your atoms might be torn apart and you would cease to exist.” He tried to hold a serious face, but was soon grinning like an idiot at her.

“Is that for real or are you being a jerk?” She smacked him on his arm, a little harder than she intended but he didn't notice.

“There are consequences if you break it, oh and you can't go into the future. Since the program is currently in 2030 that is the furthest into the future you can go.”

Julie nodded in understanding, the information wasn't that much of a shock to her but she let it settle in. “What about setting the place? I know that if I'm in California I can travel to Colorado in another time, how do I set that?”

Nick looked at her funny but started to explain how that part of the device worked, it was more complicated than the time portion and she was started to wonder who they got all the mechanisms needed in the one small wrist device.

“So what's the first thing we are going to do now that I can travel through time?” She hoped she was pulling this off, she hoped she was looking at him with affection.

“I didn't want to tell you this, but now since you are helping and I feel I can trust you, I have reason to believe that Kevin has joined with Brian as a rogue volunteer.” Julie tried to look shocked at the information. “Our first jump will be to the year 2027, the year the project recruited Brian and Kevin as volunteers, we are going to stop them from joining.”