"What are you doing, Dad?" Sam perched on a corner of the kitchen table and watched his father curiously. The older man was bent over a pocket watch, squinting to see the intricacies hidden there.

"Don't sit on the table, young man. Come over here and I'll show you." John Beckett looked up and winked at Sam, who hopped down and peered over his father's shoulder. "See this?" He prodded at a spoked wheel with his fingernail. "That's called a cog. Each cog interconnects with another to make the hands of the watch spin."

"What're you doing to it?" Sam was confused as to why his father would take the watch apart. He knew that the timepiece had once belonged to his great-grandfather, and his own father was loathe to take it out except on special occasions. As far as he knew, this wasn't any special day, so why was the watch laid out carefully on the table, each piece that had been taken out now being put laboriously back in?

"I figured it was time the thing ticked again. Here, try this." His father's large, work-roughened hand guided his own, much smaller one to fit a cog back into place. "See how it fits in between those two other cogs?" His fatheršs nail spun the cog around on its axle a few times.

"But..How does a cog work?" Sam's insatiable curiosity was nudging him to find out more about the mechanics of the watch, and how something so small could work so efficiently.

"Like this." Father took out two cogs and held them next to each other. "Each cog is fitted onto an axle, which turns thanks to the spring machinery. The cogs connect and turn because of the teeth here." He ran his finger along the edge of the cog. "And the turning of the cog makes the watch hands turn, telling us the time."

"Neat," Sam said. "Can I see the cogs turn the hands?"

"Grab me a sharp pencil and I'll show you how it works."

Sam did as his father said and John turned the watch on its side after fitting the two cogs back in securely. "Watch closely, Sam." He stuck the pencil point in between the two cogs and rotated it, causing the cogs to spin slowly in place, turning on their axles. The hands on the face of the watch moved a minute distance, but Sam saw it.

"That's so neat! Can they move backwards? Can the cogs move us backwards in time if the watch hands are going backwards?" His seven-year-old brain was over excited at the prospect of moving forward or backing up time.

John Beckett couldn't help but laugh at his son's eagerness. "The cogs move backwards, Sam," and he demonstrated that they did, "but we can't move backwards. Not in time, at least."

"Aww..." Sam's face fell. "Think we'll ever go back in time?"

"Sam, if there's a way to do it, I know you'll find out how."