"You're my best friend," Linda insisted. "We tell each other everything. Like that dream you had about the dorky guy after we saw Pretty in Pink. And ever since the accident, you walk, talk, and look like my best friend, but you act like a stranger."
It was clear Jon couldn't keep up this lie for long with her. But what was he going to tell her. He couldn't tell her that her future son was possessing her best friend, who was supposed to be dead. "When is your father getting back?"
"Next month, he's on another expedition down in South America." Linda asked. "You know that. And your parents will be back early..."
Next month wasn't good for him...the only person he could tell the truth to was out of the country. "Okay....you know how when people have near-death experiences, their life flashes before their eyes?"
"Yeah, I guess," Linda said.
"Well, I saw...something else," Jon said, lowering his voice. "I...don't want you to think I'm crazy. I thought maybe your Dad...he's into mysticism and all that stuff, right?"
"Yeah...he's always hunting for legendary this, or lost that...but when he comes back this time, he said he's staying at home for the next few semesters of teaching. But...what did you see?" She asked.
"The future...like 30 years in the future..." Jon said. "If you wanted to leave a message for someone in the future...how would you do it?"
Linda thought about it. "You mean like a letter? Like Back to the Future?"
Finally...a reference he got. It would have been a pretty new movie in 1986. "Yeah....but where do you get someone to hold onto a letter for 30 years? And...you don't think I'm crazy?"
Linda looked at her. "Well, maybe....but...I'd have to wait till the future to prove it? So, in this vision....were there flying cars?"
He looked at Linda, the girl who would become his mother someday. It wasn't that he didn't like his mother...he loved her. But this teen version...if they'd met at the same age...he could see the two of them being friends, like he was with Karyn.
In the future, Karyn was frustrated. She had tried to wish Jon would come back, and a few other variations, but nothing like that seemed to work. "I wish Jon knew that I was looking for him and knew when he was." That made the stone flash. "Well, at least he knows I'm trying." She looked back at the newspaper clipping. It was still showing the picture of the unconscious teen. And it seemed to be staying there. "If Jon changed history...and saved her," she pondered, "shouldn't his Mom remember that?"
She thought back to every sci-fi time travel movie she had seen. If Jon changed one event in the past, if the present didn't change immediately, it meant that it would take time for the past to catch up to the present. "I wish," she said, "that I would be aware if something changes in the present because of what Jon did." The stone granted that one too. "At least I won't forget what I'm trying to do."
In 1986, Jon suddenly blinked. He suddenly knew...Karyn was trying to rescue him...He just had to sit tight and not step on any bugs. "Maybe we should get to class?"
