“So.” Gabby’s face doesn’t give anything away. “Do you guys have anything to say for yourselves?”

I know better than to give up anything voluntarily. My mom has asked me this exact question before, and I know full well that it’s a trap, designed to trip me over myself. Aiden should know, too, because he was way more of a troublemaker than me in his day.

As I thought, he gives only an innocent shrug.

“I see. No one wants to fess up, hmm?” Gabby extracts a piece of paper from one of her stacked folders and slides it across the desk. It's a printed out email. Aiden picks it up, and I read over his shoulder.

From: marta@forestindustries.biz

To: gabriellesoto@ketterbridgech.gov

Gabby,

Thank you for the stats you sent over, they were just what we were looking for! Before we wrap up this (I know, I know, extremely long) email chain - we have a few FIC guys coming down to Ketterbridge for a meeting soon. I was wondering if we might be able to borrow a conference room at City Hall? I wouldn’t ask but I hear from my team that we loaned some office space to your archivist recently, so I figured it was worth a shot.

Thanks so much, Marta

Aiden glances over at me, and I swallow.

“I went ahead and gave Marta a call,” Gabby says, settling her folded arms over her chest. “She told me about a small flood in our archives, which is funny, because I didn’t hear anything about that. She said our archivist - a cute tall guy, in her words - came and then left with an industry professional whose name she didn’t catch. A nervous-looking ginger, I believe she said.” Her eyes land on me.

“Oh,” Aiden says, shifting in his seat. “Well, so, the thing is-”

Gabby lifts a hand.

“I’ve worked in politics since I was seventeen.” She points to her eyes. “Look me in the face and tell me you think you can lie to me successfully.”

Aiden opens his mouth, but doesn’t say anything. I feel sweat gathering around my collar, and reach up to adjust it without thinking - a movement, unfortunately, that Gabby catches.

“That’s what I thought.” She leans back in her seat, one dark eyebrow quirked.

“We can explain,” Aiden is clearly scrambling. He looks fully awake now. “Jamie and I had to do some research, it was nothing-”

“Research for what?” Gabby directs the question to me.

“Ghost hunting,” I mumble, and Aiden drops his face into his hands.

“Don’t be a smartass, Jamie.” Gabby points at me in warning. “I mean, do be a smartass, I like that in a person. But not with me.”

“Look,” I answer desperately, “It was all my idea, not Aiden’s fault at all. I basically dragged him into it by the hair, he kept saying we shouldn’t go, and I was all like, don’t be a baby, and he was like, no, Jamie, I respect my job too much to ever-”

Gabby gives me a look that stops me mid-sentence. The room lapses into an uncomfortable silence.

“I’ve assigned the FIC guys conference room 3,” she says. “Aiden, you’ll be the ones showing them in and setting them up. If anyone asks, I approved your little venture to their offices before you went. Here’s a copy of my note granting your request to use their space.”

She extends a paper to Aiden, who takes it, clearly surprised. It’s date-stamped two days before our unsanctioned road trip. The alarm bells in my head stop ringing. I was starting to think we would both get perp-walked out of here, but it looks like that’s not in the cards.

“Really?” Aiden looks at me, then back at Gabby.

“I haven’t forgotten what happened the day I came back to Ketterbridge,” she says, folding her hands together on the desk. “You guys got me out of trouble, and now I’m doing the same for you. But this will be the one and only time I’m bailing you two out, you hear me? I’m in a delicate position here. I know times have changed, but there are still a lot of people who don’t think that I’m the right type of person to be running the show.” She gestures to her entire self, in general. “Tony isn’t alone, alright? I can’t have it look like I don’t know what my employees are doing.”

I never considered that, and I can tell that Aiden didn’t, either. We exchange a guilty look.

“We’re really sorry,” he says, rubbing his arm. “We didn’t think about it like that.”

She clicks her tongue.

“Men.” She points at me, specifically. “White men.”

“We’re so sorry, Gabby,” I mumble, fidgeting, embarrassed. “We won’t do it again.”

Gabby looks at us sternly for another moment. Her expression breaks, and she smiles.

“Good. Aiden, please tell Kent that I’m sorry we have to keep pushing dinner back. I’ve been a little busy wrangling wayward employees, yourself included.”

Relief floods through me. Aiden fixes Gabby with a grateful smile, and I do the same. She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t look mad anymore. She gestures at the door, and both Aiden and I get to our feet. I notice that she has a glittering silver ring on every finger, and I think distantly that Kasey and Gabby would have enjoyed each other’s style. Just one more fact to add to the pile of things I like about her. Gabby's pretty chill, honestly. I wonder if anyone has invited her to the Fling Thing. Maybe I should tell Kent that he should.

“This is the last time I want City Hall dragged into whatever you two are doing, understood?”

“Understood,” we chime in unison, and she gives us a sharp nod.

“Good. Shut the door behind you.”

~~~~

I wait until we're back in Aiden's office to hand him the watch. We decided last night to take turns looking after it. He runs his thumbs over its ancient face, dropping into his chair.

“We need to be more careful,” he says.

“Probably, yeah.”

“I’m not trying to get Gabby in trouble.”

“No, me neither.”

“She’s a good boss.”

“I can tell.”

“We’re idiots.”

“That’s true, yeah.”

Aiden blows out a long breath and gets up to grab his bag. He tucks the watch away safely, then snaps the bag shut.

“We’re lucky she decided to be nice about it. Why don’t you look more tired, by the way? I feel like I ran a marathon yesterday.”

“I may or may not have, um, completely slept through work and only woken up a few hours ago. Kent is pretty much threatening capital punishment.”

Aiden lets out a little laugh, shaking his head like he should have known.

“I think Gabby would make good on that promise, or I’d have slept through work, too. They’re probably going to spend that dinner discussing the best way to dispose of our bodies.”

“I thought you’re invited to that dinner.”

“Yeah, but I was going to like, get sick,” he says, putting the last two words in air quotes.

“What? Why?”

He shrugs.

“Give them a little time alone together. I think they both want that, but neither of them will say it.”

“Oh.” I stop, thinking it over. “But I mean - Gabby is so confident, I would expect her to just ask him to dinner, straight up.”

“Well, they still haven’t talked about the whole awkward situation with him not remembering her from high school. Maybe it’s that.”

“Really? I thought she was just gonna tell him it was cool or whatever.”

“I asked him, apparently she hasn’t said a word about it.”

“That’s weird. I wonder why.”

“I don’t know,” Aiden says. He’s still holding the letter that Gabby gave us, the one with the date neatly forged at the top. “But everything Gabby does has a purpose, and she’s usually five or six steps ahead of everyone else.”

“Tell me about it,” I answer, snagging the letter from him. “She had this all ready to go. Too bad we can’t have her on Team William. I bet we’d make way fewer mistakes.”

“Yeah.” Aiden still looks a little embarrassed. “Let’s just agree that in the future, we’ll try to avoid causing her any more grief.”

“We can do that,” I answer. “No more headaches for Gabby.”

It’s right at this moment that the sound hits us.

~~~~

My parents took me on a trip to Niagara Falls when I was little. We went on a tourist boat and crept up close to the downpour. We were wrapped in cheap plastic ponchos to protect us from the spray, listening to the primal roar of the falls with open-mouthed amazement. I couldn’t hear my mom or dad, even though they were right next to me, shouting with delight. It was deafening, overwhelming. The crashing of tons and tons and tons of water.

All at once, that same sound tears through City Hall. Aiden and I both jump violently and throw our hands over our ears. It’s so loud that for a moment I think that the entire building is about to crash down around us. But unlike the steady, prolonged shout of the falls, this sound blasts through the office, rattles the windows, and comes to a stop.

“What-?” I twist to look at Aiden. He stares at me for a moment, wide-eyed. I race past him and open the door of his office.

Everywhere we look, people are spilling out of offices and conference rooms, searching for the source of the noise. There seems to be a general rush towards the main doors. As we watch, Gabby threads through everyone like a champion sprinter, her secretary at her heels. Aiden and I exchange a glance, then dive into her wake, following the path she’s clearing. She pushes through the crowd around the front doors and flings them both wide open, letting sunlight spill into the entryway. We stumble to a stop behind her, and I hear Aiden’s gasp in my ear.

“Qué diablos!” Gabby sputters.

I grab Aiden’s arm. His eyes are round and shocked.

“Did you do something?”

“No, I swear!” He holds up his hands as if to show me there’s nothing in them.

The entire front lawn of City Hall is flooded. Churning water swirls at least two feet deep over the grass, spilling out towards the street, overwhelming the storm drains. Faces line every window, gaping out at the water. People who were on the path or the lawn are rushing towards the steps, screaming, water sloshing around their knees.

“What… what…” Gabby stares at the scene before her, breathless with shock. I look to Aiden, but he seems equally as stunned as everyone gathered behind us in the doorway, confusion written all over his face. 

Gabby snaps to attention. “Renee!” Her secretary looks at her, agog. “Go get someone from the Department of Public Works, Sewage, whatever, find me someone who can explain what’s going on, now!”

Renee spins on her heel and disappears back into the building. But this doesn’t seem like a sewer main break to me; it doesn't smell, and the water is sparkling and clear. I can see the grass right through it, though the crowds hurrying to escape the water are quickly churning up mud. Half the people are run-wading towards the doors of City Hall, the others towards the sidewalk, where the water spilling onto the street is starting to spread out.

“My lord!” cries a man in a grey suit, staggering up onto the steps.

“Did you see what happened?” Gabby asks, grabbing his shoulder.

“I don’t know!” he gasps, taking his glasses off of his face with trembling hands. The lenses are spattered with water. “It just appeared out of nowhere!”

I’ve stopped listening. Kitty-corner from us, at the very edge of the City Hall lawn, half-obscured by the fleeing people, something has caught my eye. But I can’t be seeing who I think I’m seeing.

“Jamie.” Aiden leans down to whisper in my ear. “I swear, I swear this wasn’t me, I didn’t do anything- where are you going?”

Without thinking, I charge out into the water. It’s an icy shock against my skin, climbing up my jeans almost up to my knees. I hear Aiden plunge into it behind me, and then both of us are the only two wading out further into the chaos. Aiden’s legs are longer than mine, and he catches up to me halfway across the flooded lawn.

“What are you doing?” he sputters, still a foot or so behind me.

“I thought I saw-” There’s a break in the crowd, and I see the person again. There, right at the line between the lawn and the sidewalk. On his knees in the water, frantically struggling to get on his feet. He looks up, right into my eyes, and I stop, staring.

It’s - me. Wearing someone else's clothes, but definitely, definitely me.

“Oh, shit!” gasps the version of me up to his elbows in the water. He staggers upright, stumbles back a few steps. He takes off, vanishing around the high wall lining the lawn. I turn slowly to look at Aiden, and I can tell by the blank shock on his face that he saw what I saw.

“What. The. Fuck,” he breathes.

I take off running through the water, making for the spot where I just watched myself disappear. Aiden follows behind me, darting around the people still scrambling to get away, who are slowing us down and blocking our view. I reach the wall and skid around the corner. A distant flash of red hair, and I spot the other me, who is sprinting pell-mell for the City Hall parking lot.

Aiden is much faster than me, and also way less out of breath. He easily outstrips me and flies towards the parking lot like fucking Wile E. Coyote in business casual. We reach the parking lot just in time to see me climb into the passenger’s side of a shiny red sports car and slam the door. The car revs violently, backs up, and tears out of the parking lot. Aiden and I come to a stop, panting. We watch the car streak down the road, turn the corner, and vanish.

I join Aiden, who made it farther than I did. We stand there together, staring at the street as if it might explain to us what the hell just happened.

“What do we do?” I manage. My brain feels frozen, unwilling to wrap itself around whatever this is.

“I - I don’t know.” Aiden, at least, looks as shell-shocked as I do. “I guess I can try and - do some magic and ask - ask the universe what the fuck, or something, but not out here.”

“Your office,” I hear myself say.

“There’s a back door,” he answers. “The flood, it’s in the front. Let’s go!”

“This is so much running,” I gasp, and Aiden gives my shoulder a shove, propelling me into motion. We race around the side of the building, making for the other entrance. We burst inside unimpeded. No one pays us any mind in the hallway: all faces are pressed up against the windows, watching the water disappearing into the street and the storm drains. Aiden jolts to a stop just outside of his office door, and I nearly crash into his back.

“What?” I stammer, trying to regain my breath.

“I didn’t leave my door open.”

“We rushed out, maybe you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

It’s cracked about an inch. Aiden presses a hand to the door and gives it a push. We step inside.

“Nothing looks different,” I observe, but Aiden is frozen.

“My bag,” he says. I turn, spotting it on the desk. “It’s open.”

He moves to it and reaches inside, feeling around, increasingly frantic.

“Aiden, what-?”

He lifts the bag and dumps it out on the floor. Pens and papers crash onto the ground. Aiden tosses the bag aside and starts rifling through the pile.

“Shit, no, no, no-”

“What? Aiden, what’s happening, what-?”

He stops, takes a deep breath, and turns to face me.

“The watch. It’s gone.”