God, what does she remember? Besides the smile and kind eyes and general aura of punk rock guardian angel?

She tries to think past that—to the skinned knee, the way she had tugged the sleeves of her jacket over her hands to hide the scrapes, trying not to cry.

“I had spilled coffee all over my tits,” August says.

“Very sexy,” Myla notes, nodding. “I get what she sees in you.”

“And she gave me her scarf to cover it up.”

“Dream girl status.”

“I do remember there was, like, a static shock, when I reached for the scarf and our hands brushed, but I was wearing wool and the scarf was wool and I just never thought anything of it. Do you think that was it?”

Myla considers. “Maybe. Or maybe that was a side effect. Energy going nuts. Anything else?”

“I had just come from work, and she told me I smelled like pancakes.”

“Oh. Hm.” She uncrosses her legs, leaning forward across the counter. “She used to work here, right?”

“Right.”

“And this place does have a … very particular smell, right?”

“Right…” August says. “Oh. Oh! So you think it was a sense memory? Like she recognized Billy’s?”

“Smell is the strongest memory trigger. Could have done it. Maybe it was the first time she encountered something she really recognized on the train.”

“Seriously?” August lifts the collar of her T-shirt to her nose. “Wow, I’m never gonna bitch about smelling like pancakes again.”

“You know,” Myla says, “if we can figure out what happened, exactly how her energy got tied into the energy of the line, and we can re-create the event…”

August drops her shirt collar. “We could undo it? That’s how we get her out?”

“Yeah,” Myla says. “Yeah, I think it could work.”

“And—and she snaps back to the ’70s for good?”

Myla thinks. “Probably. But there’s a chance … I mean, there aren’t really any rules in this. So who knows? Maybe there’s a chance she could lock into right here, right now.”

August stares at her. “Like … permanently?”

“Yeah,” Myla says.

August allows herself five seconds to picture it: Jane’s jeans tangled up in August’s laundry, late nights and split bills, kisses on the sidewalk, oversweet coffee in bed.

She shakes the idea out, turning back to the register. “She probably won’t, though.”

That afternoon, August finally makes her way to the Q. She didn’t mean to go three days without seeing Jane after they had sex, honestly—she just got caught up in the case. It has absolutely nothing to do with how Jane kissed her for real inside a perfect moment in the middle of the night and August doesn’t know how to approach this inside a normal Thursday afternoon.

On her way to the platform, she sees the sign. Same warning, same deadline: September. The Q is closing in September. She could lose Jane forever in September. And even if she figures things out, she’ll probably lose Jane anyway—to the ’70s, her own time.

So, there’s that, and there’s the very fresh memory of gasping into oblivion on the Manhattan Bridge, and there’s the idea that whatever they are to each other is what makes Jane real, and there’s August, standing on a platform, trying to file each thing neatly away into different file drawers in her brain.

It’s crowded today, but Jane’s sitting, tucked at the end of a bench between the back wall of the car and someone’s towering Ikea haul.

“Hey, Coffee Girl,” Jane says when August manages to wedge her way between commuters. August tries to read her face, but her features assemble into her usual expression: gentle amusement, like she’s thinking of a half-remembered joke at nobody’s expense.

August wants to kiss her mouth again. August, inconveniently, wants to do a lot of things again.

“Where’ve you been?” Jane asks.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—I had this big breakthrough with your case, and finals, everything was nuts, but—anyway, I have a lot to catch you up on.”

“Okay,” Jane says placidly. “But can you come down here and tell me?”

“What—” August starts, before Jane grabs her and pulls her down. She thumps gently into Jane’s lap. “Oof. Hello.”

Jane grins back. “Hi.”

“Oh, it’s nicer down here,” August says.

“Yeah, I made reservations.”

There’s a certain threshold at which a packed subway car goes from too personal to completely impersonal, so many people that they blend together and nobody takes notice of anyone else. In Jane’s little pocket of bench, surrounded by backpacks and turned backs and boxed-up Björksnäs units, it almost feels private.

August settles in, bundling her jean jacket into her lap. Her skirt has fanned out behind her, draping over them both, and she’s acutely aware of the way Jane’s denim feels against her bare thighs, the rips that allow skin to touch skin.

“What?” Jane says, studying her face. August imagines the look on it: a combination of uptight and turned on, which pretty much sums her up.

“I need to tell you about the case,” August says.

“Uh-huh,” Jane says. “But what?”

“You know what.”

One of Jane’s hands travels up, spanning the top of August’s thigh. August looks at her, and something tugs in her chest, and she wonders if that’s it—the electricity. Desire and chemistry coiled up inside something bigger, something deeper and softer.

“Listen,” Jane says. “You can’t look at me like that and not tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking—” August starts, and the thing in her chest tugs harder, and she can’t. She can’t say that whatever is between them is the reason this is happening at all. If she says it, she’ll break it. “I’m thinking about you.”

Jane narrows her eyes. “What about me?”

“About … the other night.” Not a complete lie.

“Yeah,” Jane says. “I guess we haven’t talked about it.”

“Do we have to?”

“I guess not,” she replies, her thumb stroking a curved line up the inside of August’s leg. “But we should talk about what you want.”

And it’s … God. August can feel it: the way things have shifted, the intent that sparks off of Jane like flint, the way she rakes her eyes down from August’s mouth to her throat like she’s thinking about the mark she left there. August came down here to debrief, but she might as well be unbuttoning her shirt for how present her brain is.

Is this what it’s always like? To want someone and know they want you back? How in the world does anyone get anything done?

“I want to talk about the case.” August wants to scream. Spiritually, she is screaming.

Jane’s hand pauses. “Okay.”

“It’s—it’s super important. Really big stuff.”

“Sounds like it.”

“But.”

“Yeah,” Jane says. Their eyes meet. God, it’s hopeless.