They said goodbye to each other at Minsk's airport after taking one van full of luggage from Gomel in the early hours of the next morning. The airport itself was very small and therefore they could stay together while waiting for their respective flights. Their flights left within a half hour of each other so they boarded at the same time.

"This is it. We've done our parts here, now Sasha, get home, rest for as long as you need and write the most amazing issue of your life. Of course my parts will be added too." Ben sounded like a prescribing doctor to a patient as Sasha nodded and smiled through her tears.

"There aren't enough words to describe how much this trip has meant to me and you both being there for the hardest parts." Rahel nodded with tears in her own eyes.

    After a last round of hugs, they walked over to their gates, looked at each other again and boarded their planes for Tel-Aviv, London, and Amsterdam to New York respectively. What an extraordinary three weeks! While the other two had relatively short and nonstop flights, Sasha's had a layover of about 2 hours in Amsterdam before she flew back to New York. It was the first time out of this entire trip where being in first class didn't seem awkward. Maybe because she was just so emotionally and psychologically tired, she fell asleep as soon as the plane took off and didn't wake up even for any of the meals.

  She was very carefully shaken awake by the flight attendant when the plane was starting to descend in New York and she was a bit groggy from how much she had slept as she stowed all of her stuff and waited for the plane to land. Once she was off the plane and through customs, getting her luggage was easy as was finding the driver that would take her home. Though she tried to insist she could catch a Lyft, the company was adamant about finishing off the trip their way.

   It was late afternoon when she walked into her apartment. She just stood there feeling like an alien that had been abducted and just returned with a lot of time missing. She sat on the couch and stared off into space until her cellphone rang; it startled her. Her mother knew her flight schedule and as usual figured out exactly when her daughter would be home. Sasha looked at the phone and then shaking herself, picked it up.

"Hi mama."
"Sashenka, welcome home! It's so great to hear your voice; how was the flight?" Ekaterina said excitedly. The entire 3 weeks, she had only spoken to her daughter a handful of times. Sasha smiled as her mother's voice finally got her out of her stupor.
"Thank you, mama. The flight was great as I slept through the entire thing. It's good to be home.....I think." Ekaterina laughed on the other end. She could imagine that the entire experience was like being in the twilight zone for her daughter.
"I won't bother you much today, but you must come home for dinner tomorrow and tell us about the trip! Your papa, uncle Vlad, aunt Nadya, and I have been so worried and missed you. Mark and George haven't been able to contain themselves either, almost boycotting going to school this morning!" Sasha laughed at the thought.
"Sounds like you've had your hands full. Alright, it's a deal. Dinner tomorrow. I'll be home by 6pm."
"Wonderful! I love you so much, my darling daughter. I left some food in your refrigerator for the next few days. See you tomorrow!"
"Thank you, mama. I love you too."

     With those declarations, the date and time was set and they hung up. Ekaterina had a spare key to her daughter's apartment which she only used and came into the city when she knew Sasha would be coming home after a long or exhausting trip and needed food for a few days. This trip especially, she knew her daughter would be coming home with an extra large load on her mind so decided to go to Sasha's favorite deli in the neighborhood and get her some meals she could easily just stick in her microwave when she got home the next day.

    Sasha did just that after they hung up as she had slept through every meal on the plane. As she sat and ate her food in total silence, she knew she had to fully return to the present and remember how much she still had to do. She wasn't going to tell her family everything about the trip but she wanted to share the story of the "Room 30 years in Time" as she had decided to call the before and after room story. She had the photos with her and thought her family would find that very fascinating.

    Based on her current state of mind, she knew she would need about a week before she would start writing everything and wouldn't necessarily go to the office everyday. This was a project she needed to write in locations where her mind could wonder, especially when she was writing Vasya's story. That would be the very last part. Another good thing was that she didn't need her editor's approval before sending this to DC. Once she was sure she had written everything needed, she could send all of the work to the chief editors in DC. One less person meant, it could be seen faster and if needed, edited or whatnot.

    The next day, just as promised, Sasha arrived at her parents' apartment at 6pm and was greeted by squeals, kisses, and a lot of hugs. Her brothers were over the moon that their sister had returned. Though not knowing her destination this time, both sensed it was very important and therefore her coming back was extra exciting. Both of her parents however noticed dramatic changes in her eyes. It was like she had gotten decades older or wiser and wondered exactly what had transpired on this trip. They knew it was going to be difficult but it seemed that their daughter had returned almost like a veteran from a war. This worried them.

    Dinner was very lively, though they kept off the main topic for the sake of the boys. Sasha was able to tell them she had worked with Ben again which they were super happy about. Though never having personally met Ben, they knew who he was and what he looked like. Both boys loved that he was a scientist and were very interested in his experiments.

"Did he study fat penguins?" George asked curiously as Sasha laughed. 3 weeks later and her brother was still very much interested in seeing fat penguins.
"No, silly. He did study really huge and fat koi fish, though. We got photos of those." Sasha explained remembering the giant, mutated fish in the village just on the outskirts of Pripyat.
"Who cares about fish? You see those everywhere." George grumbled as everyone around him shook their heads, smiling.
"Not that size, you don't." Sasha replied to which George just shrugged. Large, fat fish were of no interest to him.

   Finally, after dinner was over and the boys left the room as they knew it was adult time, Sasha produced the two photographs and told her family of the trip and especially this idea that the entire expedition group participated in recreating. Everyone was stunned into silence and couldn't take their eyes off the photographs. Sasha explained how absolutely haunting the entire experience was. However, she left one part of the story out as she had told Ben and Rahel, it was way too hard to speak of it in person. As it were, she didn't tell them everything because that would take days.

   She told them about Rahel and her antics and then how she grew on everyone. They laughed and commended Sasha on her professionalism. She even spoke of Vasily and how cute and eager of a kid he was; that she really looked forward to working with him again and how great it would be for him to go to the UK to work under Ben. She never mentioned the significance of his name or any of that. It was her father that made a very interesting suggestion after staring intently at the two photographs.

"Sashenka, have you considered writing your 'Room 30 Years in Time' story in the form of a prose poem instead?" The question caught Sasha a little bit by surprise. She actually hadn't thought about it from that angle yet; in fact she hadn't thought about it from any angle. She'd just been trying to get herself out of the past and into the present since returning the day before and being with her family helped a lot.

"No papa, I haven't. But that's actually a really good idea. I haven't even considered how I would write each part; as you can imagine this thing will have multiple separate parts."
"You have always been good at writing poetry. And I think considering how artistic the idea, the job, execution of this project, and photos are; writing this story in prose form fits best."

   Her father seldom gave her advice on how to write since she got the job, but being an author himself, he understood when things needed a different layout and genre. So Sasha was keen on listening and following when he did voice his opinion. This one sounded really good to her and he was right, other then all the power in the world, the pictures had a very artistic quality. Furthermore, though no one in her family knew it, helping her think about this in a different way, also made her focus on being in the present and get her started on the road of writing. It was the best gift he could have given her; to help her connect from the past where her mind and soul seemed to be languishing back into the here and now where her actual life was.

She was ready to return to the reality of the present.