“Daniel Guddenkind?” June stepped up to the young man with her best shy-coed smile. “I believe you dropped these.”

He looked a bit like a scarecrow. His hair was everywhere, his shirt did not fit him quite properly, and his smile was more than a little crooked. He took the sheaf of papers June handed him, completely willing to believe that he’d misplaced them.

“Thank you. I don’t believe I’ve seen you around…?”

“Jane.” She lied easily. “Jane Elizabeth Inger. I’m new to the school, and I saw your thesis talk last week.”

“Oh, that.” He flapped his hands. “It’s just…” He turned, suddenly distracted by a kerfluffle happening across the grassy university quad. He missed, and June-Jane did not, a slightly older and better-combed Daniel Guddenkind slipping three more pages of notes into the sheaf of papers.

Later-young-Daniel met Jane-June’s eyes. They both smiled. “Nineteen fourty-six.” June spat the words out before she had time to second-guess herself.

“Mmm?” Younger-Daniel turned around. “It’s nineteen-forty, miss.” He sounded as if he thought she was slightly slow.

“My mistake. It was a very nice talk.” Jane hurried back to her time machine, to nineteen forty-six.

—

Jane-June and Daniel had a brief, tumultuous, and affectionate romance, half love and half science.

And, out of half love and half science, they eventually brought forth a child. “I can’t raise her.” In 1967, June Heruon could not show up with a baby with no father, nor could she claim the actual father, when he was a tenured science professor.

“I have a childless cousin. Nessie Heruon.” Daniel, staring at their tiny daughter, did not see the expression on Jane-June’s face. “Let’s name her June.”

“June Heruon. I like it.” She tasted a strange feeling in her mouth. So this is time travel.

Next: The Impossible

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