Liz flinched and hid her screen. "You saw?"

"Yeah. I saw, all right." Josh slumped back in his seat and looked at her wistfully. Red-hair, a smattering of freckles across her nose, just a little shorter than him. She was just his type, and she even laughed at all his stupid jokes. "You don't have to try so hard to come up with an excuse."

She opened her mouth, then closed it. "Pardon?"

"Come on, I'm not stupid. A portal?" He laughed bitterly. "Gotta say, that has to be the most creative way to get out of a date I've seen."

She shook her head. "What are you even talking about?"

"What was it, then? I thought we clicked so well." He tapped his chin in thought. "Gotta be my jokes. It's my jokes, right?"

"Josh. Josh, look at me." She leaned forward and stared him in the eye. "Whatever you think this is, it's not that. I like you, a lot, but I have to go now."

"Of course you do," he said glumly. "Don't worry, I'll pick up the check."

She stared at him, her lips moving soundlessly as emotions warred on her face. Then, gripping his collar, she tugged him close and kissed him fiercely.

"Come with me," she breathed.

He gaped like a fish out of water. "Wha—how—"

"Come!" Reaching for her wallet, she slapped way too much money onto the table and pulled him across the restaurant. Her hair was wild and her face even wilder, and she had never been more beautiful.

"Where are you taking me?" he demanded. "Liz, let it go. You don't have to invent some ridiculous—"

"Shut up and follow," she hissed. Bursting out the front door, she glanced down her phone and turned decisively left.

Josh sighed and followed along; might as well humor her and see what was going on. They weaved through the passersby, her dragging him along, until she pulled him into a dim back alley. He halted, but she tugged him onward, consulting something like a map on her phone. Deeper into the shadows they went, then turned a corner, and then she let go of him at last.

He opened his mouth, then swore under his breath. Just ahead, the very space was warped, shimmering as it distorted the back alley behind it like a giant rotating lens.

"There," Liz said breathlessly. "Portal. Now do you believe me?"

He gaped at the portal, then at Liz. The frenetic energy seemed to have drained from her, and she stood fidgeting with her fingers and eyeing him uncertainly.

"Are..." He shook his head. "Are you a time traveler, then? Or an alien, or something like that?"

"Something like that." She worried her lip. "There's not much time. You coming with or not?" She extended her hand.

He considered her in silence. She hadn't even told him what she was, he couldn't help noticing. Then again... she found his jokes funny. "Oh, what the hell."

"So, anyway," he said, casting his glance over his three children. "That's how I met your mother."