“Ava and Daniel were secretly dating,” she whispered as Xendo gasped. “They used to hate each other. Daniel could be kind of cocky, and Ava never had time for that nonsense. But after their graduation, I guess they developed sparks.” 

“Mom!” Xendo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

“What? It wasn’t my secret to tell. She’d only just told me the night before they left! They never got caught!” Blinda admitted while shrugging her shoulders. Xendo’s mind was reeling. 

“They could have been fired! Or their mission could have been given to different agents!” Xendo exclaimed in surprise. 

“They were smart about it. Agents break that rule all the time!” Blinda waved her hand.

“Not when they’re on the same team! Did Superintendent Pearl know about it?” Xendo questioned. 

“Nope, or else they wouldn’t have been approved for 2005.” Blinda looked up from the photo. “Damn, I wish Nova had figured it out.” Xendo saw his mother’s spirits falling again and tried to lighten the mood. 

“Well, I’m impressed. They must be pretty darn crafty,” Xendo concluded. Blinda gently set the photo on the countertop and tossed the clutter they didn’t need into their incinerator bin. 

“If all four of them had come back, Ava and Daniel could probably have gotten married publicly and had kids. Jerome and I could’ve given you siblings. Our families could have grown up together,” Blinda pondered. 

“Then I could actually have some friends,” Xendo scoffed. 

“Oh, don’t say that!” Blinda responded, punching him lightly in the arm. 

“Ow!” Xendo laughed while recoiling. 

“If you took your head out of your books or away from Rory Michael for just a few seconds, maybe you’d make some!” she taunted. 

“No one at school likes me, and I’m smarter than all of them, even the Skybornes. I feel like Daniel and Ava’s children would have understood us more,” Xendo complained. 

“Once you start your graduate program this year, you’ll have smaller classes with new kids that will be into the same subjects you are. All you have to do is talk with them. It’s all about timing. People can surprise you,” Blinda explained. 

He looked at the photo of his father’s team and their beaming faces on the counter. 

“Wait!” Xendo’s eyes lit up. “How long did the ambassador say their 2005 mission was? When did they actually arrive?” 

“Hmmm. They landed well before 2005 and had to stay many months after. I think Irwin said it was about five years,” Blinda stated blankly, stuffing the last of the “to keep” items in the pods for storage. 

Xendo snatched the photo and scanned it rapidly like he was hunting for a clue. He gave his mother a look he always had when he was up to no good, or cracked a difficult math problem. 

“No one knows what happened to them! Maybe Daniel and Ava ran off together? They could have had a whole other life in the past!

"Maybe they had kids?” Xendo’s brain was exploding with ideas. 

Blinda turned pink in the face. “Ava would never do such a thing. Don’t be silly now.” 

“There are rumors the team split up for a large chunk of the mission, and the diokas in the 2000s would never have found their relationship problematic!” Xendo pressed on. 

“Ava would never abandon their objective,” Blinda assured defensively. “I’ve told you, don’t listen to wacko conspiracy theories from strangers.” 

Xendo’s excitement just kept growing. “What if they got, like, ancient digital-era jobs? What if their kids were trioka? In the early 2000s!”