Chapter 4

[Rose's POV]

I awakened at 3:17 AM according to the glowing numbers on what the original Rose's memories identified as an iPhone bedside dock. The darkness felt different now – not the oppressive weight of unconsciousness, but the clarity that comes after a storm. My dual memories had finally stopped warring with each other and settled into an uneasy coexistence.

James is alive. My little boy is alive.

With trembling fingers, I picked up the slim device that had seemed like science fiction just days ago. The original Rose's muscle memory guided me through the motions – swipe, tap, search. I typed "James Sullivan" into what I now understood was called Google.

The results filled the screen like revelations from heaven.

Sullivan Group: From Post-War Innovation to Modern Empire

James Sullivan, 79, Steps Back from Active Leadership

Tech Pioneer's Health Concerns Prompt Succession Planning

Each headline felt like a knife through my heart. My six-year-old son, who once built atoms from wooden blocks, had grown into a man nearly twice my apparent age. The photographs showed weathered features that still carried echoes of his father's jawline, eyes that retained their childhood curiosity despite eight decades of living.

But the most devastating article was the most recent: Sullivan Patriarch Recuperating at Martha's Vineyard Private Care Facility.

Health issues. My James was not well.

I scrolled through Sullivan Group's corporate website with increasing urgency. The company structure was labyrinthine – technology, finance, entertainment, real estate. At the top of the organizational chart sat Christopher Sullivan, CEO, with a notation that all visits to the founder required his personal authorization.

I need Christopher's permission to see my own son.

Dawn crept through the bedroom windows as I discovered something called social media. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube – platforms that seemed designed to broadcast one's entire existence to the world. The original Rose's accounts were sparse, neglected, but they provided a window into modern American society that left me breathless.

Quantum computers the size of refrigerators. Artificial intelligence that could compose music. Electric vehicles that drove themselves.

The scientific progress was staggering, yet somehow disappointing. For all our advances in Los Alamos, for all the atomic age we'd ushered in, humanity seemed more concerned with capturing the perfect selfie than unlocking the universe's deeper mysteries.

A sharp knock interrupted my digital exploration.

"Miss Rose?" The voice belonged to Mrs. Henderson, the Evans family's housekeeper. "Your father requests you join the family for breakfast."

The Evans dining room felt like a tribunal. William sat at the head of the table, his professorial demeanor rigid with barely contained fury. Sarah perched beside him, her social climber's instincts clearly calculating damage control. But it was the young man across from them who caught my attention – someone the original Rose's memories identified as her step-brother, Daniel Evans.

"Well, look who finally decided to grace us with her presence," Daniel said without looking up from his iPad. "The family embarrassment herself."

"Daniel, please," Sarah murmured, though her tone suggested she agreed with the sentiment.

I took my seat with the careful composure I'd learned in Los Alamos when dealing with temperamental colleagues. "Good morning."

"Good morning?" William's coffee cup rattled against its saucer. "After last night's spectacular display of poor judgment, that's all you have to say?"

"I defended myself against public humiliation," I replied evenly. "Rachel was deliberately undermining me in front of her social media followers."

"You poured champagne on a twelve-hundred-dollar iPhone!" Daniel exploded. "Do you have any idea what kind of publicity nightmare this could become? Rachel's got fifty thousand Instagram followers! If this goes viral—"

"Then perhaps Rachel should consider the consequences before using me as content for her little performances."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"Your little performances?" Sarah's voice carried the dangerous sweetness of barely restrained venom. "Rose, Rachel is building a career. She has real talent, real prospects. Unlike some people who seem determined to sabotage their own futures."

Real talent. I thought of the calculations I'd performed at Los Alamos, the equations that helped split the atom, the scientific principles that changed the course of human history. But I couldn't explain that to these people who saw only a troubled teenager.

"I have prospects too," I said quietly.

Daniel laughed bitterly. "What prospects? Your SAT scores are abysmal. Your GPA is barely keeping you in Boston Prep. The only reason you're even attending that school is Dad's reputation, and after last night—"

"That's enough." William's voice cut through the dining room like a scalpel. "Rose, you're going to apologize to the Sullivan family. Today. You'll write a formal letter expressing remorse for your inappropriate behavior, and you'll personally deliver it to their offices."

Apologize. To Christopher Sullivan. To my own great-grandson.

"I don't think that's necessary," I said carefully. "Christopher Sullivan strikes me as a gentleman who wouldn't hold such a minor incident against—"

"Minor incident?" William slammed his palm on the table, making the china jump. "You humiliated our family in front of Boston's most influential people! The Sullivans control half the venture capital in this city! One word from them could destroy my career, Rachel's prospects, everything we've built!"

"Then perhaps," I said, rising from my chair with the dignity, "you should be grateful that I chose to defend myself with champagne rather than something more... substantial."

The silence that followed was deafening.

An hour later, I walked through the gates of Boston College High School carrying a leather satchel filled with advanced physics texts I'd checked out from the library that morning. Feynman Lectures on Physics, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals, The Principles of Quantum Field Theory – books that would have been science fiction in my original time, but which now felt like coming home.

The original Rose's memories painted a depressing picture: a former straight-A student whose grades had collapsed after her mother's death, whose SAT projections had plummeted from Ivy League potential to community college reality. But I had advantages the original Rose never possessed.

If I'm going to approach the Sullivan family as anything other than a charity case, I need to reestablish my academic credentials.

The morning bell rang as I crossed the courtyard, students streaming toward their first-period classes with the casual confidence of privilege. Boston Prep catered to the children of professors, doctors, and business executives – the kind of students who took their futures for granted.

I was heading toward the library when the sound of wheels on concrete made me turn.

A figure in ripped jeans and a hoodie came barreling toward me on what appeared to be an electric skateboard, blue-streaked hair flying, multiple ear piercings catching the morning light. He was clearly aiming to pass close enough to scatter my books – a petty dominance display I recognized from my observations of teenage behavior patterns.

As he swept past, deliberately clipping my shoulder, my carefully balanced stack of physics texts tumbled to the concrete. Feynman landed spine-down, Quantum Mechanics scattered its pages, and my notebook of Los Alamos-era equations spilled across the walkway.

The young man came to a sliding stop twenty feet away, turning to assess the damage with obvious satisfaction. His face was aristocratically handsome beneath the rebellious styling, with features that made my heart skip a beat.

Those cheekbones. That jawline. The proud tilt of the head.

This was unmistakably a Sullivan.

"Pick them up," I said quietly.

He laughed, a sound full of teenage contempt. "Excuse me?"

"You knocked them down. Pick them up."

"Listen, sweetheart," he said, stepping off his board with exaggerated casualness, "I don't know who you think you are, but you don't get to give me orders. Do you have any idea who I am?"

Oh, I know exactly who you are.

"Alexander Sullivan," I said calmly, watching his eyes widen in surprise. "Grandson of Christopher Sullivan, great-grandson of James Sullivan. Currently failing three classes while lying to your family about your academic performance. And at this moment, you're going to pick up those books."

His smirk faltered. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" I stepped closer, and something in my bearing made him instinctively step back. "You're going to pick up those books, Alexander. Not because I'm asking. Because it's the right thing to do."

For a moment, we stared at each other across the scattered physics texts. Around us, other students had begun to notice the confrontation, phones appearing to capture what they clearly expected to be Alexander's latest display of untouchable privilege.

My great-great-grandson, I thought with a mixture of love and exasperation. Brilliant genetic material, completely wasted on adolescent posturing.

"And if I don't?" he challenged.

I smiled.

"Then I'll show you exactly what happens when someone tries to intimidate a woman who's spent her life dealing with oversized egos and underdeveloped maturity."

Something in my tone must have penetrated his teenage bravado, because Alexander knelt down and began gathering my scattered physics books.

But the look he shot me as he handed them over promised this was far from over.