Turn back the clock.

Chapter 1

Tiana’s first thought when she started to wake was that her mattress was softer than usual. Such an inane thought, but she had slept on a hard mattress for years. She began to stretch, and rolled over to wake her husband, but instead hit a wall. Her eyes flew open as she remembered what had happened, and she looked around. Instead of the whites of the laboratory, she saw the creams and dark wood of her childhood bedroom, but that was impossible. There had been such a switch around, and her old room had been converted into a study. It took a few heartbeats to realise she wasn’t wearing her glasses, yet could still see reasonably well. Starting to panic, she untangled herself from the bed, down the ladder, metal squeaking all the while, and ran, by memory, into the bathroom, and in front of the mirror. The sight staring back at her was not what she expected. It was not a thirty year old Navy veteran turned famed scientist. It was not even a grown woman, but a child. Her face still held the roundness of pre-puberty, and the softness of childhood. Her hair was relatively short, and, judging by the length, she must be in late primary school, after cutting almost all her hair off in her second last year. She didn’t know how she was thinking such inane thoughts when she was suddenly eighteen years younger, but she was.

Trotting back to the bedroom, and trying to make sense of all of this, she glanced at the clock. Six am, and, depending on what day of the week it was, she may have to go to school, at least until she sorted things out. Frowning, she opened her cupboard, and started pulling on a uniform that was familiar to her as an old friend, if a little estranged. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and climbed the ladder to her bed, turning and sitting on the edge. She had to think about things, what would happen. She doubted she could send herself back forward again, and even if she could, it would change things. All she could do was live out her life once more. If that was the case though, if she had to go through high school again, she could, at least, change things a little for the better. She would convince her parents to let her go to a different school, what had ended up being her school, but not at the start. She would complete as many different subjects as she could, knowing that she would get sick of repeating the same material she had studied the first time. She would not, however, graduate early, or go up a class. She would not become a stuck-up know-all, she promised herself.

Decision made, she clambered back down, hearing stirrings in the house. She headed down the hallway, hearing her sister stirring out of bed, and heart giving an unnaturally loud thump. It was a consequence she hadn’t even thought of when she realised. She had her sister back, for a good long while. Maybe she could change the time stream enough that the fatal crash that took her life never happened. Continuing down the hall, she smiled at her father, so much bigger than her now, and gave him a tight hug. He chuckled, and hugged her back, then went on his way, getting ready for work. Tiana took a breath, and walked further in the direction of her parents’ bedroom. She needed to know if she was the only one who was not in the proper time stream, but then again, her body was. She knocked on the door, and opened it, thankful her mother was dressed. One shared look between them, and each knew the other knew. Three steps and Tiana was engulfed in her mother’s arms, and they were both shaking, with Julie whispering, muttering, that everything would be okay.

Weeks passed, weeks in which neither of them could do much. A quiet change was made to where she was enrolled the next year, and uniform was organised. It was lucky she was already known as a good student, though she still had to hold herself back from being too good, not that there would be any true explanation for it. She needed to try to get in contact with John, thus the change of schools. Sai would be harder, but she supposed the best thing to do was to join cadets, where they had met, as soon as she could, and take it from there. One other person who should have been there wasn’t, that fateful day, and she really wished he had been. Long-time friend to both Tiana and John through the ups and downs of their relationship, Casper would have had theories of how to get back to their own time, as well as crunching the numbers on the way to do it. Even if it hadn’t been possible, he would be continuously trying, and making the most out of any situation. For now, until she started high school, started cadets, and, yes, even waited a year for Casper, she would have to deal with being a thirty year old mind stuck in a body that had just turned twelve, marking three months since she had been thrown back in time, slammed into her own younger self.