Okay, this may be one of my favourite Bernice Summerfield stories I think. I don’t know, there’s just something so simple and neat about it. I love timey stories that aren’t too confusing to the point it just borders on pretentious storytelling. I’d say this is very worth the read, to be honest.

It’s a pretty regular day for Bernice on the Braxiatel Collection, and she’s hanging out with her gay best friend Anderson. She intends to meet him for lunch one morning, but when he doesn’t turn up, she becomes suspicious and eventually finds him in the Great Library. There, he’s got his eyes on a particularly attractive young man, a Jeillo by the name of Porl Tomas. Bernice is more or less forced into trying to learn more about him, for Anderson, and they soon end up hitting it off. It doesn’t go in Anderson’s favour though, as it’s actually Bernice who he ends up hitting it off with.

They begin to date for a period of time, and over the course of this time, they both go on dates together at the observatory where Porl tends to study due to his keen interest in astronomy. During one of these dates, they discuss a species that use a passive form of time travel so that when they make mistakes in their relationships, they can restart the whole thing over with this knowledge and make sure it never happens again, so that they can live a perfect marriage with no mistakes. In fact, there’s a relic from that civilisation inside of the Braxiatel Collection.

Bernice then mentions how she’s going to be attending a party at the bar with the geography students and staff, for a celebration of something or other. She attends, though things quickly become hazy towards the end of the celebrations. Nobody remembers anything that happens that night, and Bernice ends up waking next to somebody. She cleans up, deliberately not checking on her own appearance, and goes to visit Porl during his studies where he becomes strangely reluctant to speak with her. He quickly speeds off in a huff, and Bernice soon realises why he’s so angry. She’s got a love bite, from the party last night.

She tries to sort things out with Porl desperately, trying her hardest to grab his attention and speak with him. However, it’s all futile.

Then, she remembers the relic.

After staying up for another sleepless night thinking about Porl, she eventually goes to steal the relic from the Collection. She briefly runs into Braxiatel, but manages to get away with little suspicion, and gets the object with success. She turns up to Porl’s dorm room, and notices how much of a mess it is, before then offering the Jeillo the opportunity to start over again.

However, this was all an elaborate plan. Months ago, Porl had actually broken up with an ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, who he practically ruined. Even though he knew she wouldn’t want him, he wanted to use the device and fix his own mistakes with her, and used Bernice as a pawn to orchestrate his plan. He staged the spiking at the party, so she would deliberately get that love bite so he could pretend to be angry, so that Bernice would then fetch the object for him.

Bernice, obviously distraught by this whole thing and of the Jeillo leading her on, ends up smashing the relic, though not without the brief thought of maybe using the relic to go back and never get pushed into talking with him in the Great Library to begin with.

Porl is then placed under investigation by the Collection security, and Bernice is once again left to wallow in even more of her trauma.

Such a good story, again I would probably thoroughly recommend it.