She knew he expected her to not take the key, to change nothing about their shared past.

She took the key.

“I remember something King told me once a few years ago,” she began, feeling the bite of the teeth of the keys against her palms. “You all had a Plan B if King couldn’t help me stay out of juvenile detention for helping my dad steal all those cars. You remember Plan B?”

“Of course. It was my plan. Kingsley would smuggle you out of the country and take you to live with my mother in Denmark. He knew people who could forge all the necessary documents. Do you wish we’d gone with Plan B?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” she admitted, nodding. “My own mom could barely stand me when I was that age. I think…I think I needed a mother then a lot more than I needed a sexy priest flirting with me. As much as I liked it—fuck it, I admit it, I loved it—I have to wonder if Plan B wasn’t the better plan. For me, anyway. Your mom always took such good care of me. A kid needs that. It probably wouldn’t have worked. Someone would have noticed I’d gone missing and started asking questions. Maybe even my own mom. Still, I’ve wondered…”

“Would we still be together if it had been Plan B?”

“I have no doubt in my mind we’d still be together.”

“What’s different then?”

She looked away, afraid to tell him the truth knowing it would hurt him. Then again, she wanted to hurt him.

Meeting his eyes, she said, “No Nico on the B timeline. I wouldn’t need him. I wouldn’t need someone in my life who…who never hurt me.”

He lowered his chin to his chest. He raised his chin, didn’t meet her eyes.

“I’ll await your verdict and accept whatever sentence you impose on me.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Can’t judge you without judging myself. I’m no saint either.”

She’d had more than her fair share of underage lovers, after all. For some reason it didn’t seem so bad with a teenaged boy dying to lose his cherry to a sexy, experienced older woman. But now she had to wonder…if she could give the keys for the time machine to Wes or Noah or Michael, would they take them? Would they take them and go back and turn left when they would have turned right and met her?

She had to wonder.

Her phone buzzed with a message. She glanced at it.

“Cyrus,” she said. “He’s on his way over.”

“I’ll let him in.” He started to leave. “I remember rocking you, after we’d saved you and you were too scared to sleep. Do you remember that night?”

“Of course I remember. I remember you offering to die for me, too. And you would have.”

“I would have. I would again. Now.”

“Is that what Father Ike did? He died to save Melody? Was it really suicide or was he killing the man who was going to hurt her? Is he a hero? Is he a monster? Was killing himself heroic? Or was it cowardly?”