FICTION SERIES – FOWC & RDP

Chapter 3:

1776 Problems

There was no welcome committee.
Just the smell of firewood, horse sweat, and a stranger yelling “HEATHENS!” at a woman holding a spoon wrong.

Fiona sat on a wooden bench outside what might’ve been a tavern—or maybe just a house with more than one bowl—trying not to throw up from stress or the smell of something roasting nearby. Her body was sore from the jump, and her brain was short-circuiting in two languages.

This is real. This is happening. I’m in 1776. In borrowed pants. I time-traveled on a date.

Every time she thought that sentence, her stomach did a full somersault.

Elliot sat beside her, smudging his glasses with the corner of his hoodie, blissfully unfazed. She wasn’t sure whether to envy him or throttle him.

“I can’t believe I’m wearing linen pants someone died in,” she muttered.

Elliot squinted at her. “We don’t know that.”

“There was blood on the cuffs, Elliot.”

“Well, maybe he died near them.”

She stared at him. “Do you hear the words that come out of your mouth?”

He gave her a crooked grin. “Not always.”

She pressed her palms into her eyes. You can do this. You’ve taught physics with the fire alarm blaring. You’ve testified in front of a grant panel full of skeptics. You can withstand a little history.

But history was proving to be loud, itchy, and profoundly uninterested in her credentials.

Already today she’d bartered a paperclip for two apples, tripped over a cobblestone, and been told by a man named Jedediah that she had “the posture of a godless widow.” She didn’t even know how to begin unpacking that.

“Okay,” she said under her breath, trying to calm her breathing. “List your assets.”

Elliot perked up beside her. “Do mine count too?”

“One broken time device,” she continued, ignoring him. “Two 21st-century brains. Zero friends. No clean water. No wifi. No deodorant. I’m one itchy shift away from a total psychological event.”

“You’re handling this remarkably well,” Elliot offered, leaning back like he was on vacation.

“I am actively repressing a meltdown,” she replied flatly. “This is emotional duct tape. It’s not coping.”

He nodded with mild approval. “Still counts as functional.”

“Are you seriously not worried right now?”

“I mean, I’m not thrilled,” he said. “But worry won’t solve it. We need a plan.”

Fiona turned toward him slowly, one brow twitching. “A plan?”

“Yeah. Blend in. Gather resources. Find soft places to sleep. Possibly invent sunscreen.”

She stared. “We have no ID. No income. I had a burrito punch card in my wallet, and now it’s probably a war crime.”

“Technically, we still have half a taco.”

“That taco is in another century.”

He held up a hand. “We don’t know that for sure.”

She let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh. He’s doing it again. Defusing panic with deadpan optimism. Pretending this was a mildly inconvenient camping trip and not a rupture in the laws of time.

Fiona stood and paced. The hem of her borrowed skirt brushed against her ankles like a rope. The air smelled like ash, mud, and anxiety.

“You’re right about one thing,” she said. “We have to withstand it. All of it. The cold. The lack of toothpaste. The judgmental goats. For a month.”

Elliot sat up straighter, brushing crumbs from his lap. “We’ve both survived worse.”

“You mean you survived grad school by printing your dissertation at a Kinko’s while actively hallucinating.”

“And you survived your committee asking why your paper didn’t include lipstick.”

She smiled grimly. “Fair.”

They sat together quietly for a moment. A breeze rustled the leaves. Somewhere nearby, a woman shouted about leeches.

Fiona hugged herself, the texture of the coarse shirt making her skin itchier by the second. “I miss hot water,” she murmured.

Elliot looked at her, his voice soft for once. “I miss your blazer.”

She blinked. “What?”

“You always looked confident in it,” he said, a little shy now. “Like you could run the world and correct my posture without raising your voice.”

Her mouth betrayed her—just a slight curl at the corner. Not quite a smile, but close enough to feel dangerous.

They sat in silence again until a goat trotted past and made direct, unsettling eye contact with them.

“Do you think there’s a place around here that sells coffee?” he asked, hopefully.

They looked at each other.

Then laughed.