Time & Tied: Awareness

by QuasiTemporal

Summary:

One woman has within her the power to flaunt temporal paradox. It's a power that prevents rebellions against her and her companions, a power that ensures she can always get her way. She has the power to control time... or to annihilate it.

Now, someone has traveled back from that problematic future. Their plan? To awaken this woman's power early, when she was still a teenager. Before she became set in her ways. In a high school, where two students are vying for control of the student body. What could go wrong.

Time & Tied: Awareness is the first series. It focuses on the cast learning about time travel.

Chapter 1: Part 1a: Timely Discovery

Summary:

Carrie Waterson discovers a strange device in a ravine. Then things get weird.

Tomorrow morning would be Carrie Waterson’s first argument with a future incarnation of herself.

However, on this particular Thursday evening, she was busy thinking that a time machine would be the solution to all of her problems.

After all, having one meant she could make her appearance at Julie’s first major party of the school year, and then travel back to still be in her room on the off chance that her father came by to check on her later. He probably wouldn’t, granted, but being in her room had the fringe benefit of a full night’s sleep before Friday’s math test. That subject seemed to have become a lot harder in Grade Eleven.

“It’s fine. He won’t check,” Carrie muttered aloud, staring out of her bedroom window. After all, her dad had remained wonderfully oblivious to most of her comings and goings throughout high school, not to mention her whole social life. The party wouldn’t even be a problem if she hadn’t accidentally let slip about it during dinner on Monday.

Now, if she’d still had a mother, maybe they would have said she could go. Seeing as Julie was her best friend and all.

“Mom’s gone. Let’s get on with this,” the blonde teenager said, to cut off her mental musings. She opened her window and leaned out to look more closely at the backyard. No one there. Hardly surprising for late September, but since their yard opened right out into the ravine, one could never be sure what people (or more likely small animals) might be wandering around.

After adjusting the strap of her small shoulder purse, Carrie made her way onto the roof, and over to the oak tree. With practiced ease, she climbed down via the branches, having no difficulty despite her long hair and somewhat impractical choice of attire.

Carrie had chosen a cropped top, and a skirt that only just reached her knees. After all, you didn’t show up to a party thrown by the richest girl in town wearing a long sleeved T-shirt with torn jeans, particularly not when you had been named the head cheerleader for the school year. With that reputation established, she could be forgiven for wearing her running shoes, which would be more practical for traversing the ravine than any sort of heel.

Carrie dropped to the ground, dusting off her hands. A thought nagged at her. It WAS her athletic abilities which had netted her the cheerleading status, right? Neither she, nor Julie, were part of the graduating class, but Julie LaMille was not only the richest student, she was one of the two polarizing forces within the school. She could have pulled strings.

Carrie pushed those thoughts away as well. After all, she could do handsprings around the seniors. She hooked some errant strands of her long hair back behind her ear, adjusted the blue hairband she wore, and sprinted across the moonlit backyard, into the cover of the nearby trees.

She did glance back towards the house, seeing the light was still on in the den. Maybe her dad would be so into writing his latest set of short stories that she would be back before he even went to bed; Thursday parties didn’t go past midnight. That would be helpful.

Carrie then headed down into the band of greenery that cut a swath through the small Ontario town where she lived. There were some paths through the underbrush, to be sure, but they weren’t always obvious. And in the dark, Carrie knew she had to take care not to stumble on a root, perhaps falling and twisting her ankle. She couldn’t afford to be injured.

It helped that she knew the best route, right through to the park mere blocks away from Julie’s house, having lived in this town all her life.

Carrie peered at her watch. It was nearly 10pm already. She picked up the pace, putting her track and field abilities to good use. Except in her haste and confident familiarity, Carrie tripped just before emerging into Willowdale park. She fell to the ground, biting back a cry of surprise. Managing to break her fall, she still slid on the ground, and felt a twinge of pain.

She quickly turned herself over into a seated position, peering down at her knees. Sure enough, she'd skinned one of them. Perhaps she should have worn jeans after all?

Carrie sighed. At least her reflexes had still been good, and the rest of her seemed fine... but, damn it, if there was one thing she was not, it was clumsy. How had she fallen? Something unusual must have tripped her up. More curious than annoyed, Carrie sat up fully and peered back along her trail to see what had been in her way.

It was difficult to see in the dark. But with the moonlight, Carrie was able to pick out the outline of a black box. Most curious.

She approached to look more closely at it - she was sure it hadn't been there earlier in the week. The box was a rectangular prism, maybe 60cm by 60 cm, by 30cm in height? But it had a digital readout that had been sunken slightly into the front.

It also had a handle on the side, so Carrie's first impression was that this device was some cross between a computerized slot machine and a cash register. But the readout didn’t depict cherries or lemons. Instead, it featured eight numbers, with no indication of a decimal point. Why had someone thrown this device away?

Wait a minute.

Holding it up, Carrie realized there was also a slot next to the readout where you could drop in coins... another reason she was drawing parallels with slot machines. But, upon investigating further, Carrie saw nowhere to collect your winnings, or any other openings. It was also lighter than she might have expected, as if it was partially hollow. So, what was this thing, and why was it here?

Carrie shook it. She couldn't hear anything rattling inside. She ran her hands over the sides of the machine, which seemed oddly smooth. Something about it struck her as being high-tech, but she couldn't put her finger on why. What was it supposed to do? Carrie decided a few more minutes of inspection wouldn't hurt at this point. She looked closer.

There was an unexpected flash of light from somewhere in the park behind her, which allowed Carrie to pick out the outline of a circular panel on the top of the device. Carrie tossed a quick glance back over her shoulder, saw nobody, and returned to her examination.

The panel reminded her vaguely of her father’s CD player. This really was a hybrid device. She pressed the top circular section, wondering if it would open, but nothing happened. Maybe the handle? She pulled it down, but again nothing happened. Perhaps it worked like an old style jukebox, only activating when you dropped coins into the slot.

Curiosity completely piqued by this point, Carrie fished around in the small shoulder purse she'd brought with her, bringing out a quarter. Potentially a waste of money, but if this thing did play music or do anything cool, she could present it to everyone at the party as both an interesting artifact and the reason for her lateness.

Carrie plunked her quarter into the machine. It began humming. This seemed like progress.

Carrie pressed on the top. Nothing. She pulled down on the handle.

There was a flash of light and she had the sensation of being sucked into a void. Carrie screamed, as both literally and metaphorically, her life was turned completely upside down.

***

Carrie slowly felt consciousness coming back to her.

She reached out, felt dirt, and sat up with a start as she remembered where she was.

"Dammit," the blonde cursed, brushing more dirt off of her clothes. How had she fallen? No, it was more like the earth had dropped away from underneath her. But then why wasn't she down in a hole somewhere?

Carrie looked around. She was still near the border of the ravine; the treeline wasn’t far. What the hell had just happened? Carrie's eyes set on the black box, still in front of her. There had been a flash of light...

"Damn thing almost electrocuted me," Carrie deduced, speaking aloud to try and clear her head. No wonder it had been thrown away. Her natural curiosity would be the death of her someday.

Scowling, Carrie picked herself up off the ground, being reminded of her scraped knee in the process. She tried to brush the rest of the dirt off of herself but quickly realized that her clothes could use changing now too. How many things could go wrong in a single evening?

For that matter, how long had she been unconscious? Carrie checked her watch: less than an hour. She should have time for a quick tidy up before taking another run at the party - since Julie's parents were away like usual, they wouldn’t shut it down early.

Leaving the stupid box where it was, Carrie hurried out of the wooded area behind her house, up towards the convenient tree in the backyard. The wind had picked up, so maybe it would be good idea to change out of her skirt.

Carrie stopped.

This was her backyard. But she'd been about to emerge into the park before she found the device... right? What was she doing back on the wrong side of the ravine?

Carrie's eyes narrowed. Perhaps she had wandered towards the house in a semi-dazed state after receiving that electrical shock? Dragging the weird box with her? Well, it was the only explanation she could think of. Anyway, she had more immediate concerns, she'd figure it out later.

Carrie climbed up the tree, slightly favouring her right leg. She soon reached her unlocked window, opened it, and moved inside, onto her desk. She swung her legs around to hop off... and in the process kicked the crystal swan she kept there, causing it to fall to the ground and shatter into a dozen pieces.

Carrie froze. Her heart constricted.

She wasn't upset over the noise she had just caused, this was more than that. She couldn't have just hit the crystal swan she kept on her desk.

That particular ornament had been broken over two years ago.

It was then that Carrie heard the movement over in the sheets on her bed. Someone was in her room? No one was supposed to be in here. What the hell was happening??

Carrie sat on the desk, paralyzed by fear and confusion, as whoever was in the bed rolled over, looking in her direction as they blinked themselves awake.

On the desk, Carrie's eyes went wide. Then Carrie let out a scream.

But it wasn't the Carrie on the desk who was screaming. On the contrary, that Carrie's reflexes were finally kicking in, causing her to get away by practically falling back out of the window, onto the roof.

Which left the younger Carrie in bed, screaming for a second time.

Chapter 2: Part 1b: Timely Discovery

Summary:

Carrie is her own evening prowler, but slowly puts the pieces together.

Carrie tossed her covers aside, rubbing her eyes to try and clear the sleep from them. There was a knock at her bedroom door.

“Carrie, are you all right? Was that you screaming?" her father called out.

"I..." Carrie stopped, not sure what to say. Had she really seen a figure breaking into her room, or had she been dreaming? Wait, hadn't she closed her window before going to sleep?

Carrie scrambled out of bed and moved towards her window. There was what looked like fresh traces of dirt on the surface of the desk and the windowsill. She peered outside. Nothing. But if the person was quick, they might have made it down the tree and around the side of the house.

It hadn’t been a dream. Someone had been here. And their silhouette had been strangely familiar. Someone from school playing a trick on her? Carrie didn't think it was very funny.

“Carrie? I’m coming in," her father announced.

Carrie grabbed a couple of textbooks and stuck them down to conceal the few dirty smears on her desk as her door opened and the lights clicked on.

If her dad found out about how she could use the oak tree out back to get in and out of her room, he might chop off the branches - and her social life would be dead on arrival. She didn’t need that sort of aggravation during her first year in high school.

"It's all right," Carrie said, turning. "I had a bad dream and overreacted."

Her father stared. "Are you sure that’s all?” He took another step into her room. "It looks like you've broken something..."

Carrie blinked, and with the lights on she noticed for the first time the demise of her crystal swan. She choked back a cry of horror.

"The swan... the swan mom gave to me,” Carrie said, biting her lip.

She was not going to cry, damn it. She was not going to display such weakness, not with her father here. Carrie didn’t want any fake words of comfort from him. After all, he didn’t care about her, or he would have explained, as soon as her mom had disappeared, he would have explained...

Anyway. The less attention her dad paid to her, the easier it would be for her to improve her social life in high school. He couldn’t know about the prowler.

"It... the wind must have knocked it off the desk,” Carrie continued.

"I'm sorry," her father said back. There was a pause. "Maybe I can find you another crystal--"

"Don't bother," Carrie said curtly. She reached out and slammed the window shut.

This settled it. Whoever had just been in here, playing this horrible, stupid prank? They were going to pay. Carrie would see to that. Except - how was she supposed to figure out who had done it?

“Should I get a broom to--"

"I'll clean up the mess tomorrow,” Carrie interrupted. “In the meantime, I'm going back to bed. See you in the morning."

Her father frowned, perhaps at the abruptness of her manner, but he didn't seem to know what to say about it. So once Carrie was lying back down, it was with a final 'goodnight' that he turned the light back off and departed.

For her part, Carrie curled up in her bed, partly incensed but more despondent than anything else. And with her father out of the room, she finally allowed a tear to trickle down her cheek. Who had broken the swan? One of the few remembrances she had of her mother. Was there anyone she knew who could help her track down the culprit and get revenge?

***

Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang at Julie LaMille's house. Well, mansion. Despite only recently moving into the small town, the LaMilles had bought the largest property that they could.

It was after three rings that Jeeves answered the door. This surprised Carrie on two levels.

Firstly, because she had thought that Julie had given the family butler the evening off, what with the party and all. Secondly, because he was wearing a bathrobe. It wasn't midnight yet, and Carrie had always thought that the family help didn't go off duty until some time after that.

"Yes?" Jeeves said archly. "Why are you disturbing us so late at night?"

"Uhhhh, I'm looking for Julie," Carrie said uncertainly. She was probably quite a sight too, knee still scraped up, looking dirty, and now sweaty after having run all the way over here. But where else was she supposed to go? Except there was no party here. Where WAS everybody?

"Miss LaMille is asleep, as is the rest of the house. Come back tomorrow." Jeeves started to close the door.

"No, wait. Jeeves, just tell her it's Carrie, please. I don't know where else to go. I think somehow I just met myself. I'm so confused..."

"Neither Miss LaMille nor I know of any teenager by the name of Carrie. So whatever problems you have, either take them elsewhere, or come back at a more decent hour." With that, the door slammed shut.

Carrie reeled. Now Julie's family and servants didn't know her? But they'd been acquainted for almost two years now. Were people being replaced by alien pod lookalikes? That could explain the other version of herself which had been sleeping in her bed... Carrie suddenly felt like she was lost in some bad science fiction movie.

She took a deep breath. Focus. When had things gone crazy? After the box. Yes, that damn black box thing. That had to be it, Carrie realized. Somehow, it had done something to everyone.

Or, no... more likely to her. But what? Well, she'd soon figure that out. With nowhere else to turn, Carrie hurried back towards the spot where she'd left the device.

As she approached the location, she heard a rustling in the bushes. Someone else was out here now? Had the original owner tracked down their property? Would they have answers?

"Who the hell is out there?" Carrie demanded.

In response, in the darkness, a shadowy figure jumped up and turned, starting to run away.

Screw that - Carrie was fed up with the entire situation now. Whoever this person was, they weren't getting away.

Calling once again upon her athletic abilities, and ignoring the aches in her body, she sprinted forward and tackled the stranger.

Both of them fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs.

Chapter 3: Part 2a: Time Out

Summary:

Carrie recognizes Frank from school, and we get some of his perspective on the situation. As well as confirmation of actual time travel.

Both of them fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs.

Carrie immediately had the upper hand. She wasn’t merely athletic, she also knew enough self defence techniques to ensure that no one at school could physically take advantage of her.

Then again, this guy wasn't putting up much of a fight.

Pinning her opponent's arms down to the ground, she repeated her question. “I said, who the hell are you? And what are you doing out here at this hour?”

"Euh... I'm j-just... s-studying tree frogs," came the stammered response to Carrie's second question.

But that voice, and her now close-up view of what had only been a shadowy outline before... it answered Carrie's first question as well.

There was only one person who sounded like that, with that particular shade of brown hair and glasses. Not to mention the fashion challenged button up shirt and pants.

"Frank Dijora," Carrie growled. "Don't you ever give up on that pathetic excuse?"

“Excuse?" He seemed unwilling to meet her gaze.

"Yes, you've used tree frogs as an excuse for snooping in the ravine the last three times I saw..."

Carrie's voice trailed off as she realized that not only was she was pinning a school geek to the ground face-up in the ravine out back of her house, but that she was doing so in a cropped top and moderately short skirt.

There was a reason Frank's attention wasn't on her face.

Carrie quickly jumped up and backed away, but not before slapping Frank soundly across the face. Oh, how utterly, utterly humiliating.

"Ow," came Frank's anticipated response as he reached up to rub his cheek. “H-Hey, what was that for? You identified me, you know I'm no prowler."

"Don't play innocent. I saw where you were looking.”

He looked away. "Well, you're the one who jumped on top of me."

"I did NOT," Carrie said angrily. "That is, you shouldn't have run away like that." She could feel her cheeks burning. "And if you breathe a WORD of this at school, so help me I'll skin you alive."

"As if anyone would believe me anyway," Frank mumbled. He pushed himself up and adjusted his glasses. "Though really, Carrie, I’m only in the ravine to study tree frogs. I read that they croak at night. I never thought I'd be bothering anyone, and I never used this research as any 'excuse' prior to now, so I don't know what you're going on about."

Now he was simply lying. She had run into him more than once down here, earlier this month. Hell, it was as if he’d taken an interest in the ravine - or in her - one once school had started up again in September.

Carrie narrowed her eyes. "All right then, explain your little device over there," she stated, gesturing back towards where she figured the black box was. "I suppose you use it to shock the frogs, which you then take back to your laboratory to perform further experiments on?"

Frank brushed off his pants. "No. In fact I stumbled across that device about a minute before you pounced on me. It's not mine."

Carrie sniffed haughtily. "Yeah, right. Why should I believe anything you say?"

"I don't care whether you do or not. But I hardly have a motive to lie, do I?"

“I’ve been lied to and have had my mind screwed with for the last hour or so. I don't see why it should be ANY different with you,” Carrie snapped.

But her anger was quickly running its course, with her more recent troubles and confusions reasserting themselves in her mind.

Her former adversary simply shrugged back. "Look, I came here looking for frogs, not some bizarre looking clock and not you, Carrie. So if we’re through here, I'll be going home.”

"Fi-- wait, clock? What clock? You mean that device?"

"Yeah. It had a readout with eight digits displaying today's date. I assumed it was a timepiece of some sort."

A clock. Of course, Carrie realized, that's what the numbers meant. Which still didn't explain the electric shock, or her having a clone, or the cancellation of Julie's party. But, progress.

"A clock," Carrie repeated aloud. She looked back towards the device. “You spot anything else about it?"

"I hardly had the time," Frank responded dryly. "Why?"

"I..." Carrie paused. "Nothing." She didn’t need his help.

She moved back through the brush, trying to pick out the outline of that box thing again in the dark, finding it over by the clumping of dirt she'd fallen into not so long ago.

“I’m guessing that the device isn't yours either?" Frank asked, having followed after her.

Carrie didn't answer. She was too busy looking over the CD player/cash register/slot machine, noticing that the digital readout had changed. Worse than that, if one assumed that it DID read Month/Day/Year? Things were very, very wrong.

It indicated that today’s date was, in fact, two years in the past.

"Frank, did you mess with this box?" Carrie inquired, feeling a knot growing in her stomach.

Frank crouched down next to Carrie. “I said no. Why?"

“You didn’t change these numbers?"

Frank peered at the readout, adjusting his glasses again. "No, same as before. Today's date."

"That's not the date," Carrie stated, the knot in her stomach tightening. “It’s not showing the correct year. Or day. Only the month is right, September.”

"What are you talking about, Carrie? What year do you think it is?" he asked, his tone mildly amused.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Carrie had turned and grabbed hold of two fistfuls of Frank's shirt. She yanked him close and glared at him, eye to eye.

"Don't you screw with me, Frank Dijora," the blonde snapped. "If you're screwing with me, by heaven you'll wish you'd never been born.”

"C-Carrie..." Frank gurgled out in reply. “N-No joke. That’s honestly the date." He repeated it aloud, dispelling any notion that she was misinterpreting things.

The worst thing was that it made sense. Because the date he gave her was the very day that her crystal swan had been broken. The last present her mother had ever given her. You didn't merely forget the day you lost something precious like that.

Or the day you swore revenge on whomever had done it.

But she had never been able to find the one responsible. She had never learned who it was who had attempted to get into her room that night.

Could it be... she'd sworn revenge on herself?

No. No, the repercussions of being lost two years in the past were bad enough, without adding that into the mix. This was NOT the sort of time travel she’d envisioned doing earlier that evening.

Or rather, an evening two years in the future?

“Carrie? What day do you think it is?” Frank asked quietly.

Carrie couldn’t answer. She released Frank's shirt and started shaking.

She hadn't cried about her mother’s disappearance in over two years - or, what, half an hour ago depending on your point of view? - but now, for some reason, she couldn't stop a tear from trickling down her face.

Which just upset her even more, what with Frank being here... and that made her begin to cry more.

God, this had to be a dream. This wasn't really happening. Right? She refused to believe that this was happening...

***

Frank found he could only stare as the blonde girl in front of him started sniffling.

He didn't know Carrie Waterson that well. Oh sure, they had been in some of the same junior high classes, before high school had begun this year. But given his predisposition for the library and Carrie's for the gym, they had never really interacted.

Of course, she did have something of a reputation coming into high school... not just for her track abilities, but for her ambition. He had even heard rumours about guys trying to leverage that, who claimed to have been past first base with her.

Granted, Frank generally chalked that up to locker room bragging. The few times he'd seen Carrie with anyone it had been obvious who was in charge. Things wouldn’t go any further than she allowed.

Or so it had seemed?

Yet here was Carrie, practically sobbing in his lap. He'd never heard of her breaking down like this before. Certainly not over some simple confusion regarding today’s date.

Yet... now that he looked more closely at her, wasn't her hair longer than he remembered? And wasn't she a bit more... well, okay, Carrie had always been one of the early bloomers, but when she’d been on top of him, her figure had seemed more...

Oh, what on earth was he doing, sizing up her attributes when she obviously needed help of some sort. Or did she? Was this a trap?

"Carrie, how old are you right now?" Frank ventured.

"Sixteen," Carrie choked out. Speaking aloud seemed to strengthen her resolve. She wiped at her eyes, and looked to be reigning in her emotions.

Frank frowned. He couldn't remember exactly how old Carrie was, but he knew there wasn't that much of a difference in their ages. "You really have traveled in time then," he concluded.

It didn’t make sense that this was some bizarre ruse to ridicule him within his first month of high school. No, given Carrie's reactions, and the fact that he hadn't told anyone of his plans for being in the ravine, that would be pretty far fetched.

"Was it this device that did that to you?" he continued.

"Brilliant, Frank," Carrie retorted, haughtiness creeping back into her tone as she fumbled through her shoulder purse, pulling out a tissue. "I see now why you won the academic achievement medal last year."

"Yes, well, that won't actually be for another year then," Frank responded automatically, turning his gaze over to the apparent 'time machine'. It looked very unassuming. "What exactly happened?"

Carrie blew her nose. "Why do you care? Look, I hope you realize who would win in a battle of my word against yours over what you've seen from me tonight."

"Carrie, I'm trying to help you here," Frank answered patiently. “My dad’s an engineer. I’ve played around with the inner workings of clocks and other electronic devices before. Maybe I can do something to this machine and get it to return you home."

At least, it would be an interesting new challenge.

"Oh." There was a pause as Carrie apparently weighed the pros and cons of that idea. "It worked like a slot machine," she finally admitted.

She put away her tissue, and crouched down next to it.

"I put in a quarter, pulled that lever, got some electrical shock, and the next thing I knew the world had turned upside down. There’s some round panel in the top of the device, but I couldn't get it open. Do you really think you can help?"

She started twirling a strand of hair in her fingers while batting her eyelids. Attempting to charm him?

The overall effect was somewhat diminished by the fact that her eyes looked to be red from crying. It was hard to tell in the dark.

“Maybe,” Frank said. He examined the device more closely and could now see the circular outline of that panel on the top. He pushed on it but nothing happened.

"Yeah, like THAT will work," Carrie remarked behind him. "What are you going to try next, pulling the lever?"

Frank resisted the urge to say something in reply, instead hefting the machine to turn it around in his hands. The surface was smooth. He couldn't feel any obvious places where the sides of the box had been screwed or welded in place, which was odd in and of itself.

So, how to look inside? He gathered from Carrie's attitude that pulling the lever wasn't going to help. Yet that seemed to be the only potential connection to the inner workings of the device. Maybe if he looked at it a bit counter-intuitively?

After all, there were two ways to handle a lever.

Setting the device back down, Frank grasped the arm on the device (he heard Carrie snicker) but instead of pulling, he gently pushed it away, towards the back. There was some resistance, so he pushed it a little harder... and harder... belatedly wondering if too much force would cause the thing to snap off in his han--

The lever fell back, with the result that the circular section on the top popped up. Frank grinned. "Oh ye of little faith," he remarked aloud, leaning over to peer into the box. He couldn’t see anything. "But I need more light," he continued. "Can I take this back to my lab?"

"What, can't fix it here with one hand tied behind your back?" Carrie grumbled.

Frank simply turned and looked at her until Carrie heaved a sigh of resignation.

"Yes, fine, but can we hurry up about it? It IS getting late, and I'd like to get back to my proper year before breakfast,” she said, seemingly attempting to reassert her authority.

Frank began to worry that this would get very tedious, very fast.

Chapter 4: Part 2b: Time Out

Summary:

Frank and Carrie learn more about the time machine. Frank decides he'll have to activate it to learn anything more, with time travel logic to justify the act. How will that turn out for them?

"What the hell are you doing?"

Frank jumped at the unexpected voice, banging his head on his desk lamp. "Ow!"

He turned to see Carrie standing behind him, glaring.

"I'm trying to figure out how this time machine works," Frank reminded her. "How long have you been awake anyway?”

Carrie had fallen asleep on the couch in the corner of his basement lab soon after they'd arrived.

Well, he called it a basement lab, it was more an unfinished section of the basement that his parents let him use for performing scientific experiments.

He supposed he couldn't really blame her for nodding off either, given how it had been after one o’clock in the morning, and she had been dealing with some measure of emotional stress. Which was fine, it had left him the time he needed to investigate alone – albeit with limited success.

Rubbing his head, Frank pushed aside his notes and glanced over at his wall clock. Geez, it was almost eight in the morning.

"Long enough to realize that it's now ten past seven and I'm still apparently trapped in this nightmare of the past," Carrie replied huffily. "What have you been doing for the last several hours, ogling me while I slept?"

Frank threw the screwdriver he'd been using to probe the thing down onto the floor.

"Carrie, I have been fiddling with technology I barely understand, attempting to discover how this damn machine works without completely wrecking it in the process, all for your benefit. I'm not exactly doing this for my health either, in fact I've been awake for almost twenty-four hours straight now. It's not even ten past seven, it's almost eight, but your watch is wrong because it's still on your time, as anyone with half a brain could have figured out by now. Okay?"

There was a moment of stunned silence. Carrie frowned.

Frank quickly spoke up again, reaching down for the screwdriver. "Look, I'm sorry, I'm frazzled, I didn't mean to--"

"No," Carrie interjected. Her voice softened. "I'm the one who should apologize. I do appreciate what you're doing. Don't think I'm not grateful. It's only, I..."

She stopped, and turned away.

Frank finished retrieving the screwdriver, waited another few seconds, then prompted, “Only what?”

The noise that followed sounded like Carrie exhaling through her teeth. “Look,” she said at last, “I’m a lot more used to being in control of whatever’s happening around me. The fact that I have no control here any more is scaring me, it's scaring the hell out of me. Got it? I don't like feeling this way, and I sure don’t like relying on other people for help.”

The blunt admission caught Frank off guard. Then again, this Carrie was two years older than the one he knew. People could change.

“Understood,” Frank answered.

She then looked at him over her shoulder. “So, can you tell me what you've figured out? Maybe I can do something here too. I'm not as dumb as I act at times. Really."

There was obvious sincerity in her tone. Frank was reminded of how she'd been sobbing hours before. Difficult as it was to see Carrie as a damsel in distress, it’s true that the situation wasn’t in her favour.

"All right,” Frank decided. “First, I need a quick break. You can clean up your knee, and we can even grab a quick bite of breakfast. My parents aren’t likely to notice, dad’s out of town for a conference, and mom wanted to sleep late this Saturday."

"Saturday? But it's only Fri--" Carrie stopped. "Right. Saturday in this time. Spoke without thinking."

Frank smiled back wryly. "There's hope for you yet."

***

Carrie stuck the bandage on her knee and cleaned up with a facecloth as best as she could. By the time she was done, Frank had obtained some cereal and hard boiled eggs, which they brought back downstairs.

Carrie also grabbed one of his larger T-shirts to wear. The basement was chilly, particularly given her attire.

"Oddly enough,” Frank began after they were done eating, “I think the device is based on some sort of time travel roulette. So your slot machine analogy wasn't too far off."

“Wait, what? The destination is generated randomly? You can't specify an arrival day?” Carrie asked, quelling her initial panic. This did not bode well.

"Well, yes and no," Frank answered. "First of all, the thing gave no power readings until I dropped a coin in. That must have completed a circuit, as things lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“If you did that, I wouldn’t pull the handle too,” Carrie cautioned.

“I figured. Now, the readouts for month and day, those seem to be randomized. At the least, I can't see any way to specify an exact date directly, short of, I don't know, manipulating subatomic particles on the fly. However, if I understand the labelling, there's a way of ‘rigging the game’, so to speak. Meaning that, at least 8 times out of 10, you can end up when you want to be."

"You're not instilling me with a lot of confidence here," Carrie remarked. She recognized a hint of annoyance creeping back into her tone. It was mostly to mask any sign of fear.

"The real problem," Frank continued undaunted, "is the four digits indicating year. At first, some of those seemed to be fixed, here in the 21st century. But when I dropped in a second quarter, a different circuit was tripped somewhere, freeing up all four of them, allowing for passing the century mark.”

“How many quarters did you put in?”

“Four. Because I had a hypothesis that the more money you put in, the farther through time you could travel. Unfortunately, that’s still unconfirmed, because I realized belatedly that we might only be aiming for the past. And I didn’t want to compound the problem, dumping you into the nineteenth century.”

"Well, there must be SOME way to aim for the future,” Carrie stated, peering down into the device. She knew enough to recognize the circuit boards, but that was it. Damn it, she really might be of limited help. "If you've dropped coins in here, where did they go?"

"Into that silver box towards the front. I don't know what goes on in there, and didn't want to completely dismantle anything for fear of destroying the device completely."

Carrie peered at the box. Fair enough, she supposed.

He sighed, and she turned to see him stretching his neck, likely to work some kinks out of it. "What might help,” Frank concluded, “is seeing what goes on when the machine activates, and how it resets. But even setting aside that risk, activating it requires resetting the lever, which closes the top back up. So we wouldn't see what happens."

Carrie glanced absently around Frank's makeshift ‘lab’. "Well, you've got lots of junk sitting around here," she pointed out. "Can't you whip up some sort of miniature video recorder device, then hook it into the system to monitor everything?"

Frank shook his head. "Who do you take me for, James Bond's Q?" He paused. "Though... wait, I do have a mini camera, and I could tape it in place, then set it to continually record..." He started searching through a drawer. "But as I said, activating this device IS risky. It's very possible that we’d become stranded in another time period."

"We?” Carrie noted. “I have nothing to lose, so I might as well try it. You don't have to come with me.”

Frank paused in his searching to give her a rather pointed look. “Think about your arrival.”

She frowned, then winced. "Oh... I guess you'd need to come in order to keep fiddling with the mechanism," she clued in. After all, it could get tedious if she had to recruit new help in every time period she went to.

Frank nodded back at her. "Honestly, at this point the only alternative I can think of is giving it to my dad, or to the government for study. But he’d probably take it apart, while the Feds would take YOU apart, or at least take you away for testing. Both things which I think we’ll want to avoid."

“Thank you for that,” Carrie agreed. And while he didn’t say it out loud, Carrie realized that Frank seemed intrigued by the idea of time travel. Plus there was only so much you could learn by simply poking and prodding.

He surfaced from the drawer with a small gadget in his palm. "Give me a minute and I'll set everything up."

It took closer to twenty minutes. But soon everything was in order.

"Okay, when I say pull, we'll both pull on the handle," Frank said. "If nothing happens, I’ve got data. If we jump back in time, I’ve got data, a few tools on my person, and a roll of quarters in my pocket. Which, given the camera results, will hopefully allow me to reset everything for a return to now.”

“I’m not keen on the ‘hopefully’,” Carrie pointed out. Not that she had any viable alternatives to offer.

“Right.” Frank grinned. “Except look at it this way. You know I’m going to be going to high school here in town for the next two years. As such, there’s no way I can also be stuck somewhere in the past.”

"Unless my being here is changing your past," Carrie pointed out. She wasn’t exactly a fan of science fiction, but had seen some time travel movies. “Right?”

"Yeah... I was trying not to think about that part,” Frank said, grin fading. He exhaled. “Oh well. Either way, this is sure to be a lot more exciting than a couple years in high school could ever hope to be.”

“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”

“I don’t know. Let’s do this before I lose my nerve.” He caught Carrie’s eye. “So, we go after three. 1... 2... 3... PULL.”

They both yanked the lever, there was a flash of light, and Carrie again lost consciousness.

***

Frank groaned. He had felt like he was somehow being sucked into a void, passing out - only for consciousness to return to him, owing to the terrible roaring noise in his ears. It sounded as loud as a jet engine.

Blinking, Frank finally managed to take in his surroundings. It was a jet engine. He and Carrie were sitting out on the tarmac at what looked like an airline terminal. What in the world? Where was his basement lab?

"Hey, what are you kids doing out here?” came a shout from a man driving a baggage handler cart.

"Went out the wrong door," Frank shouted back.

This looked like an airport where you could deplane onto the tarmac. So there had to be a doorway back inside somewhere nearby.

He tucked the time machine device under one arm and then grabbed the arm of Carrie, who seemed to have frozen up, before taking a couple steps towards the terminal building, pulling her along.

"You might have mentioned that this thing travels through space too," he accused his companion.

It sounded like Carrie said something in reply, but Frank couldn't hear her over all the ambient noise. "What?" he called out.

Carrie stopped allowing herself to be dragged along, bringing Frank up short. "I said, what’s the date on the device?" Carrie repeated, grabbing Frank's arm back, her nails digging into his skin.

"Ow! What--" Frank cut himself off, staring nervously at Carrie.

If she had seemed a bit out of sorts over the last several hours they'd been together, right now she looked downright spooked. So Frank pulled the time machine up to show her the readout.

Carrie started to shake. "Oh God. Oh God, no..."

“Carrie, what--"

Again, Frank couldn’t complete the sentence, as this time Carrie tore herself away from him and began sprinting towards the terminal.

"Mom?” Carrie screamed. "Oh God, Mom, don't get on the plane..."

Chapter 5: Part 3a: The Plane Truth

Summary:

Carrie discovers she's in time to save her mother. But from what? And how much should she tell Frank about her history?

"I... don't need... this stress..." Frank Dijora panted.

As he ran after Carrie Waterson, he tried to mentally sum things up: He was now inside the terminal of some unknown airport, in pursuit of a girl he barely knew, because despite trying to help her, she was managing to get on his nerves more and more the longer they were together.

Of course, looking at that time in the literal sense, he technically didn't even know her yet, since both of them were now eleven years in his past (thirteen years for Carrie), making the two of them something like three years old, logistically speaking. Perhaps an empirical time travel experiment had not been the way to go.

But Frank had expected to still be in his basement, at the very least.

The brown haired teenager pushed past a man wearing a sweatshirt that read LARS 01, mumbling an apology as he did so. “Lars” apologized back. So perhaps they were still in Canada. For that matter, the signs were English and French. Good.

Damn, but Carrie was fast – he’d now completely lost track of her. On the bright side, stopping and looking about, he was only getting a few curious stares, so their sprinting out of an arrival gate hadn’t been worthy of attention by security personnel. Yet.

Standing up on a convenient chair, he scanned above the crowd, looking for signs of the blue hairband that Carrie had been wearing. He also used the opportunity to catch his breath.

Blonde teenager, blonde teenager... was that her? She seemed stationary now. What was her problem anyway? She'd screamed something outside the terminal before running to the nearest gate entrance, but with all the noise, he hadn't caught it.

Climbing off the chair, he hurried in the direction of the figure as fast as he was able, calling out "Carrie?" as he got closer. No response.

There was a break in the crowd, allowing Frank was able to see that it was indeed her. She was staring at something, and following her gaze, he realized it was a clock. A clock that read 3:14.

Shaking his head, Frank came up next to her and panted out with as much authority as he could muster, "Carrie. What... on earth... are you DOING?"

"Not now," Carrie responded dazedly.

Frank thought she was brushing him off, until she turned and looked at him. Her spooked look from before had now resolved itself into some form of quiet serenity. Though that was just as spooky, if not more so, particularly given how her makeup was starting to run because of her unchecked tears.

"Not now. Thank goodness, I've still got over three hours."

Frank sighed. Were older girls always this cryptic? He wasn’t a mind reader. “Over three hours until what??" Frank fired back in frustration.

Carrie's eyes unfocussed slightly. "Until... until mom gets on the plane... and... ends up... dead..." With that, she crumpled to the ground and passed out.

***

Carrie Waterson felt someone slapping at her face. Without thinking, she reached out and slapped back, feeling her hand connect.

"Ow!" came a familiar exclamation. Carrie blinked her eyes open and sat up to see Frank staring irritably at her while rubbing his cheek. Oops.

He turned away.

"She's fine," her time travel companion remarked to a couple of people who had apparently taken an interest in her momentary collapse.

Perhaps she shouldn't have pushed herself so hard while running, but she hadn't known what time it was, only the date and the place... she'd wanted to make sure she was in time.

Was Frank saying something else? "Huh?"

Her companion sighed. "I said, let's move over to those chairs, out of the way."

Carrie blinked and nodded, stumbling back to her feet and following Frank over to the wall. It didn't really matter where in the airport they were. As long as they were here, now, in time to prevent what was about to happen. What were the odds that they should have ended up here?

Actually, pretty good, Carrie decided.

After all, her first experience with time travel had involved a link to her mother in the form of her broken crystal swan, so on some level she'd anticipated a similar result this time. That was why, when they'd ended up outside this airport... she'd known what the date had to be.

"But since it's obvious you're not paying attention to me, maybe I shouldn't bother talking," Frank concluded dryly.

"Huh?"

Frank pressed a hand to his forehead. "Carrie, please, PLEASE snap out of it," he pleaded. "As I said, I know you're distraught, but I'm flying blind here. What's wrong? What do you mean about your mother? Is a plane going to crash here in the next three hours?"

Carrie frowned. She'd said too much. She hadn't stopped to fully consider the situation, and as a consequence, things were spiralling outside of her sphere of control again.

"Damn it," she muttered, clenching her fists. She couldn't very well feign innocence now. How much should she say then? Carrie paused to consider what she knew of Frank.

Not much, despite them being in the same high school homeroom. Mainly because he was not one of the "in" crowd - more one of the "geek" crowd, as Julie referenced them. That is, the socially inept weirdos with a fixation on grades.

Recently, she'd also found Frank lurking in the ravine out back of her house, citing as a reason alleged "tree frogs". In fact, she and Julie had just thought of a way to get back at Frank for snooping around, which... oh, shoot.

Had he actually been looking for the time machine? Or how it had ended up there? They might not want snipe back at him for that.

Well, that was neither here nor there; right now, she and Frank were in the past, and Frank had requested an explanation, and she supposed he was entitled to it. She'd simply have to... to trust in his discretion.

"All right," she said. "But Frank, assuming we get out of this..."

"...if I say anything it's my head on a platter and you'll deny it all anyway," Frank finished.

Mildly annoyed by the interjection, Carrie still nodded in response. “Okay. Thirteen years ago..." she stopped. "That is, in about three hours... my mother had to... that is, she will fly off to Bermuda on business.” Grimacing, Carrie decided to stick with past tense.

“She worked for this company that produced documentary films, and they were doing a shoot there. So..." Carrie stopped again. She didn't really know all the details, or want to remember them.

She decided to say everything as quickly as she could.

"So after dinner me and my father drove her here to the airport where she caught a plane that was to bring her down to Florida and from there to Bermuda but it was the last time either of us ever saw her alive," she said in one breath.

Frank looked uneasy. "Then... her plane... crashed?"

Carrie bit her lip. There was a reason she'd never told anyone even this much before. “No. See, my mom got to Florida just fine but on the smaller corporate plane flying the rest of the way..."

Could she actually say it?

"My Mom disappeared in the Bermuda triangle, okay??”

Chapter 6: Part 3b: The Plane Truth

Summary:

Carrie wants to save her mother, Frank worries about rewriting the timeline. Can they come to a resolution that they would both accept before it's too late?

"In the Bermuda... what?"

He was shaking his head, with an incredulous look on his face. Carrie felt the urge to slap it off. So she did.

"Ow! Will you cut that out?"

"You were going to laugh, weren't you. It's not funny,” Carrie said, turning away and folding her arms across her chest. "It sounds stupid, but that's what happened. What's more, ever since then everything has been screwed up with our family.”

She slumped, more words spilling out before she could stop herself.

“See, Dad always used to think she would come back, he's such a pathetic romantic. Created a rift in the family. I didn't even get the whole story until I was practically a teenager. And I wasn't sure if I could believe it even then, but managed to double check the story with my grandparents."

She finally stopped, but didn’t turn back to face him.

“I wasn’t going to laugh,” was all Frank said in response.

Carrie looked instead at the visible clock. “It’s fine. In less than three hours... I can change all of that.”

She'd tell her mother not to get on the plane. Get her to give the Bermuda job to someone else. Then her mother would still be around while she was growing up, her father could spend more time with her because he wouldn't be thinking about his wife and... and well, she would have a real family and it would just be better.

Frank cleared his throat. "Carrie, you obviously have some strong feelings you're expressing here, so I hesitate to bring this up, but... we don't know anything about the repercussions of time travel. Particularly with respect to changing the past."

Carrie shrugged noncommittally. "I did see 'Back to the Future'. In this case I'm saving my parents' relationship instead of splitting them up. No big deal."

Frank pressed a hand to his forehead. “I’m more worried we’ll end up re-enacting the movie '12 Monkeys'," he muttered. “I mean, this past? May be unchangeable. Consider, if time travel has apparently been invented, why hasn't someone already gone back and prevented the two World Wars? Or 9/11?"

Carrie finally met his gaze. "Frank, we're not talking atomic bomb scale here. I'm simply going to tell my mother that she shouldn't get on her plane - that she should let someone else film her documentary. That's it."

“Okay, well how can you convince her to do that? Are you going to say that you're her sixteen year old daughter, who has traveled back in time to warn that if she doesn't do as you say, she'll be lost in the Bermuda triangle?"

"Yes," Carrie stated emphatically. She froze. "Or... no, maybe not that much detail," she amended, bothered at the way the conversation was going.

“You think she'll cancel all her plans simply on the word of some girl she meets at the airport?"

"I'll show her my ID,” Carrie decided, reaching for her shoulder purse. "Damn it, no I can't, I left my purse back in your lab. How could you let me do that?"

Frank blinked. "How could I let YOU...?"

"Oh, never mind. She'll believe me. She HAS to, I'm sure she'll sense our mother-daughter bond."

"So there's no chance at all she'll think you're a lunatic?"

"Do I look like a lunatic?"

Frank paused on that one, which made Carrie wonder if she should slap him again.

Before she could completely raise her arm, he continued swiftly with, "Okay then, let's look at this from your 'Back to the Future' perspective. Your mother doesn't do this job. Someone else takes her place. Say they vanish instead. As a consequence, this other person no longer gives birth to a person who was supposed to become the Prime Minister, which means you could inadvertently cause--"

"Shut up," Carrie cut in, standing up and clenching her fists again. "Stop speculating that way."

"I'm just saying that we don't want to charge in and save one life at the possible expense of other--"

"You don't know what's going to happen. Okay? You don't know how this will end up affecting things. You don't know anything."

"No, but you don't know either."

“I know anything would be better than what I’ve got. How dare you be so cold and analytical about this, you jerk? We're talking about my MOM for God's sake."

That, at least, shut him up, even as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

"I never should have told you anything in the first place," she decided. She moved her arm to slap at him again but he moved his head back out of the way.

One well placed kick later, and Carrie was running, pushing through the small crowd, trying to get away from Frank and his stupid theories.

For the damnable thing was, his concerns felt valid. Sure, Carrie had minimal qualms about toying around with the lives of people who deserved it at school... but this went past that.

Did she really have the right to risk permanent change to the lives of people she didn't even know? Yet she had to save her mom. Now that she could, why was doing it seeming so damn complicated?

***

Frank sat against the wall, rubbing his shin and stifling a yawn. The crowd had seemed to buy his "rehearsing for a soap opera" story, but he really wished Carrie hadn't made a scene like that. Sooner or later, someone was going to ask where their parents were.

Of course, on that last outburst, he was partially to blame, for getting her riled up.

He hadn't meant to upset her.

Frank adjusted his glasses, alternately glancing at the time machine by his feet, and over at the nearby women's washroom; Carrie had picked a good place to hide out for the last hour or so. She had to come out eventually though, and then... well, then they'd find a way to resolve this. Somehow.

Frank wondered how was it that time travel often seemed so fun and exciting in science fiction books and movies. He supposed he'd never thought about much about it outside of that. Frank made a mental note to look into the phenomenon a little more scientifically, outside of the realm of Hollywood movies.

Assuming they ever made it back.

Someone came out of the washroom. Frank looked back up, but it wasn't Carrie. He sighed.

Could he have spoken to her differently? But she hadn't been considering potential consequences. You had to consider those in any experiment. Right? And changing the past, well, this was big time stuff - no pun intended. Someone had to play devil's advocate, and he was the only other time traveler here.

Still... Frank remembered how his pet goldfish had died when he was seven. If he could change that, would he do so? But then, that was hardly a good parallel for this circumstance, was it. He swallowed another yawn. How long had he been awake now?

The door of the washroom opened only a crack and Frank thought he saw Carrie peering through. Shaking his head to clear it, Frank stood, but the door closed again. A few seconds passed. Then the door opened completely and Carrie strode out, approaching him confidently.

As she got closer, Frank noticed that she had been crying again, but that she had tried to clean herself up to cover that fact. He decided not to say anything about it.

"All right," Carrie began as she reached him, putting her hands on her hips. "Some might consider me shallow and self-centred, but I'll have you know that I can consider the consequences of my actions. So listen to THIS.”

Frank simply nodded.

“I'll tell my mom that I'm an intern from her company. That we got word of bad weather in Bermuda, delaying the shoot for a day. That we can't reach the pilot of her connecting flight, but are advising her to hold off on flying out of Florida until sometime tomorrow morning. Follow?”

Frank nodded again. It wasn’t a bad plan, all things considered.

“Furthermore, that they should use the time to double check the mechanisms of their aircraft. Thus, even if they’re not delayed a whole day, ANY delay, plus the possible repair of anything wrong, should prevent her death without screwing up anyone else's future." Carrie allowed herself a self-satisfied smile. "So?"

Frank stared. "I must admit, I'm impressed,” he granted. “But don't you think your mother will double check your information?"

“Her phone was off during dinner. When she arrives here, she'll be running a bit late, so she shouldn't have time to contact anyone. Then, by the time she's in Florida, no one will be working in the office to check with," Carrie stated.

She really HAD thought this through, Frank realized.

"Besides, if it turns out that we need more than my explanation, we can come back again to try something else,” she concluded.

Frank blinked, wondering if he'd just heard correctly. "Wait. Come back? Carrie, paradoxes notwithstanding, we don't know how the device brought us here in the first place."

"Oh, didn't I say? I figured that out too. Since I was thinking about my mother, the time machine picked up on that and brought us to this location," Carrie revealed, now sounding far too smug for Frank's tastes.

"That's not scientific," he countered in annoyance. "I don't remember seeing any 'pick up user's mental brainwaves' circuit incorporated into the device." Though he had to admit, he wondered if that would be something he'd recognize.

"Look again, maybe you missed it."

“We're not presently in a location that lends itself to poking around in the innards of this device. What if someone thinks it’s an explosive?”

"Hmph," Carrie grumbled. "So, tell me again why you came along?"

"I'm starting to wonder that myself," Frank sniped back.

***

Carrie shook her head at Frank’s attitude.

Still, she supposed it was only natural for him to be upset at being shown up by a cheerleader. Truth be told, even she was impressed with her own deductive reasoning - the last forty-five minutes had been spent trying to tap into any and all resources available inside her, to reason through the problem.

It was an actual life and death situation, after all.

However, maybe she should try and be a bit nicer to Frank. Without him initiating said reasoning, she might have made a fool out of herself in front of her mother.

“Look, Frank, if you want to do something useful here, I am thirsty after all the running from before. Since we have almost two hours to wait until my mother arrives, how about you buy me a drink?" Carrie proposed. She started to twirl a strand of her hair in her fingers. "I mean, I'd pay but I left my money back in your lab."

Frank stared. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then closed it, then threw up his hands. "Sure, whatever, I’m thirsty too.”

Carrie smiled engagingly and turned to look around the area. "So where do they hide the refreshment stands in airports anyway?" she mused. "I never come to these places." She shivered involuntarily.

Frank pulled out his wallet and removed a twenty. "How should I know? Maybe-- oh, shoot, wait a minute. This bill wouldn’t have existed eleven years ago. I can’t pay for something using money that doesn’t exist yet, they won’t recognize it.”

"Bah, use change then," Carrie stated, airily waving a hand.

Frank fished around in his pocket, emerging with some coins, as well as his roll of quarters for powering the machine. "But even these have dates on them,” he pointed out. “I’ll need to check each one to see if it exists in this present."

"Oh, God, Frank, seriously – who bothers checking the dates on coins?"

"But the potential economic repercussions--" Frank froze. "Wait, did you just say people won't check the dates?"

"Newsflash, Frank. As long money looks authentic, most people don't pay any attention." Why did she even have to explain it?

"But... of course," Frank said, grinning. "It's a bit of a wild theory, but if I'm right... Carrie, I just figured out how the time machine works."

Chapter 7: Part 4a: Flight Attendance

Summary:

Frank has a working theory about the time machine. But before they can go anywhere, Carrie needs to confront her mother at the airport. How will that go?

Carrie returned Frank’s excited expression with one she hoped conveyed skepticism. "You've figured out how the time machine works," she repeated back.

"Yes," Frank continued eagerly. "My goodness, it's so obvious... you say people don't check the dates on coins. What if the machine DOES? Because remember, it wasn’t until my second coin that the machine gave us the option of jumping the century mark. That second coin, I saw it was from the 1990s. That silver box in the device, perhaps it has some way of identifying when a coin was minted.”

He reached out to grasp her hand, so she flinched away from him.

“Think, Carrie,” he insisted, “when you dropped your first quarter into the time machine, was it from two years previous to your present? From the year of my present?”

“Did I not JUST say people don't check dates on coins?” Carrie retorted in annoyance. She frowned. "Though, it certainly could have been. As I was wondering if the quarter would be a waste of money, I noticed it had one of those silly minted designs on it, from a recent year. But it was dark, so I’m not sure."

“Still, we have a working theory. As long as I have a quarter from my present with me, and you have one somewhere in your purse at my lab, we’re home free.” Frank broke open his roll of quarters and started to look through them.

"But that's a really stupid way to build a time machine," Carrie insisted, preferring her own reasoning. "In order to travel into the future, you’d have to have money that hasn't been minted yet. It's... uh, not scientific," she concluded, deciding to reuse his earlier objection.

"Actually, travel to the future has never been the problem, we do that naturally," Frank responded, his attention now on the coins. “There’s even some mathematical sense behind this manner of travel. I mean, theoretically, the machine has got a four dimensional grid - what better way to pinpoint the year aspect than with the money minted and used at the destination time? The only thing you have to do is remember to bring along a quarter from your departure era... like this one.” Frank held up a coin triumphantly.

"Yeah, okay, so you're saying it's a fluke that we're here? Not at all related to the time machine reading my thoughts about my mother?" She didn’t like it. Her reasoning had been MUCH more elegant.

“Right,” Frank agreed, obliviously. “There’s randomness built in, so I figure the machine must have chosen one of the two quarters I fed in to land us here. Though you may be right in some sense, since my theory doesn't take into account the physical plane - the other three dimensions on said grid.”

So there was some acknowledgment, at least.

He pocketed the key coin. “Of course, my initial inspection assumed that the machine contained time circuits. I wasn't aware of any spatial alteration occurring during temporal displacement." He started picking through his quarters again.

"Right, sure," Carrie affirmed, abandoning the science for the moment in favour of what she hoped was a distracting smile. "So, what about that drink?"

Frank didn't even look up. “Hold on, I want to finish checking these dates... hey, this one could take us back to 1972."

Carrie stared, her expression morphing back into annoyance. She was being ignored in favour of COINS? Of all the guys in the world to have as a time traveling partner, how had she wound up with him? She raised her foot.

"Ow! Geez Carrie, I think I preferred it when you were just slapping... hey, where are you going?"

***

A little over 90 minutes later, both Carrie and Frank were standing near one of the entrances to the terminal's departures area.

"I'm still not sure this is a good idea," Frank reiterated to her. She saw him cast an eye towards the position of her feet as he continued. “There’s a lot of things that could go wrong."

“Shut up, Frank," Carrie said tersely.

Honestly, she was starting to understand why she’d never hung out with geeks. Subtle finesse was completely lost on them.

At least Frank had finally gotten around to buying a drink. And now she was now going to save her mother. So things were going to be all right.

Carrie glanced at the clock. As she remembered it, their family dinner had gone a bit later than expected, so her father had simply driven by the airport, dropping mom off. For the last time. Carrie shivered involuntarily once again.

That had to change.

It would change. Her mother had just walked in.

Carrie stumbled forwards a few feet, away from Frank. "Mo-- Mrs. Waterson?" she called out.

The woman with short blonde hair, wearing a business suit and carrying a suitcase, turned in her direction. At the attention, Carrie's knees felt weak and her throat felt dry. It really was her... oh God...

"Do I know you?" her mother inquired with a trace of annoyance in her tone.

"Yes. I mean... n-no... I-I'm..." I'm your daughter... "I'm from the firm. Your firm. The firm sent me, I'm an intern."

Carrie realized she wasn't vocalizing too well, but being presented with her mother, ALIVE... she could swear the hammering in her chest was audible throughout the terminal.

In some sense, she was three years old again. Mom looked exactly as she did in the pictures Carrie had.

Was there a chance her mother would be able to figure out that Carrie was, in fact, her daughter? Who had come back to save her life? Wait, she’d said something. Questioning why Carrie was here?

"There's bad weather in Bermuda," Carrie blurted.

Her mother blinked in surprise. "What ARE you going on about, girl? I doubt they'd call the documentary that, it's dealing mostly with historical facts."

Carrie realized belatedly that her mother had asked about more specific news pertaining to the assignment.

"No, I mean there is bad weather in Bermuda. You'll have to delay and get Florida checked out in the plane. The plane checked out in Florida." Oh God, she was muffing this. Now her mother was looking at her funny.

“Are you sure I don’t know you?" Mrs. Waterson continued.

Carrie's heart got caught somewhere in her throat. There it was. Recognition. On some level, her mother KNEW.

Maybe Carrie could drop the pretence and just explain what was going to happ-- "You're the intern Bob hired, aren't you. Is he still gunning for this assignment? Look, you tell him I don't have time for his stupid gags, I have a plane to catch."

Her mother turned away.

"N-no," Carrie gasped out, reaching for her mother's arm. "This is no joke. Please, listen, mom--" she stopped and clapped her outstretched hand back onto her mouth.

That had torn it. Though, at least her mother had turned back.

"What did you call me?"

"I..." Well, she might as well say it now. “M-Mom. I'm... t-this will sound crazy b-but... I-I'm your daughter..."

Her mother stared. "You're my daughter," she repeated. "Right. My daughter is three years old, kid.”

"I-I've grown up," Carrie continued, feeling tears welling up in her eyes yet again, damn it all. "And I've come through time to tell you that y-you can't go on this plane trip or else you'll d-die."

So much for the well thought out plan. It was like the mere presence of her mother had turned her into a gibbering preschooler again.

***

It was as Elaine Waterson peered more closely at the person claiming to be her "daughter" that she supposed there was some passing similarity between them.

But time travel? Dying on this trip? Nonsense. She would be up for promotion after this job, if it went well... it HAD to be that jerk Bob, trying to mess things up for her.

Time to make her intentions towards her co-worker quite clear.

“Okay, girlie. You go back and tell Bob to stop screwing around in my affairs like this,” she declared. "In fact, you tell him that if he persists in pestering me like this, then by heaven he may wish he'd never been born."

Elaine turned to walk away again.

She had no way of knowing that, to the sixteen year old, it was akin to a knife being plunged directly into her heart.

Indeed, Carrie’s vision blurred as she tried to choke in a breath. Taking a step forward, the teenager then wondered if she was about to grab onto her mom's leg and sob, or grab onto her mom's shoulders and shake her until she listened.

Before Carrie could do either, someone else blocked the way.

Chapter 8: Part 4b: Flight Attendance

Summary:

The meeting with Carrie's mother concludes, and the two teens attempt to return to the present. It goes as well as you might expect.

“Hey. You Waterson?"

At that, Elaine turned once more, to see another kid hassling her. Where were they all coming from?

“I beg your pardon?"

This one with the glasses looked younger, and she got the impression he hadn't slept well in the last day or so.

"I said, you Waterson? You fit the description I've got but, uh, so have the last five women I've asked."

"Who wants to know?" she demanded. She knew the better choice was to leave, but now she was vaguely curious.

“Urgent message. You're supposed to catch some plane out of Florida for Bermuda, right? Well, the weather's not going to be good down there tonight, so--"

"Yes, thank you, I already got that message," Elaine Waterson interjected icily, glancing back at her previous annoyance.

Oddly enough, that blonde girl was simply standing and staring at the two of them, openmouthed.

"Oh, her? Never mind her, whatzisname sent her... you know, the one with the weird complexion, has that thing happening with their head..."

"Bob?" Elaine attempted to verify. He did look kind of weird in that toupee he wore.

"Er, yeah, that's the guy. Anyway, apparently he was going to give you this news in some outrageous fashion, so that when the guys down in Florida reiterated it, you'd flip out at them. But they don't seem to be answering our calls, so the information has gotta go through you. Hence, uh, I'm here to see it does."

Elaine Waterson narrowed her eyes. Not totally out of the realm of possibility, though that was a pretty roundabout way for Bob to try and get her in trouble. "So then who--"

"Look, all I want to do at this point is give you the whole message. I’ve got better things to do, and you've got a plane to catch."

She sighed. “Yes, all right, make it fast." He’d reminded her that she still had to check in and get through security... but might as well hear him out, just in case. Her curiosity was fully piqued.

"You're authorized to hold up the Bermuda flight until tomorrow morning and fly out then. Book a hotel, whatever. Also, tell the pilot to look over the plane. Last week there were rumours of trouble with that aircraft... get someone to make sure the whole plane is running safely."

"Indeed," Elaine Waterson replied dryly. Check over the plane for safety? It hinted at what openmouthed-“daughter”-girl had said... but did that validate it, or indicate some elaborate ruse? Was there a punch line coming? "Anything more?"

"Yeah. Coming from me and not the people you work for, I suggest that in future, your family gain a better understanding of how pointless it is to engage in needless acts of physical violence."

"I beg your pardon?" Carrie's mother exclaimed in confusion, not even noticing she'd said it in sync with the blonde teenager who was still standing nearby.

“Just seeing how well you're paying attention," he continued swiftly. "That stuff about Bermuda sunk in yet?”

"Yes," Elaine said, peering more closely at the boy, to try and ascertain both his motives and his sincerity. “Now can you prove what you’re saying somehow?”

The kid adjusted his glasses. “Look. If I wasn't on the level, don't you think I'd come up with a better story? Think about that. Then do whatever makes you happy.” With that said, he turned and walked away.

Elaine Waterson almost called after him to ask for real verification, before realizing she didn't even know who the kid was. Then, as she watched, the boy picked up a nearby black box of some sort and walked right out of the terminal.

Strange. This whole thing was strange. Bunch of childish nonsense... yet if so, why?

In one sense the guy had been right. Bob would have had either a better story, or an outlandish one - like what the first girl had tried feeding her.

Anyway, she had a plane to catch. She'd consider things during the flight.

Sparing a final glance towards the first teenager - had she even moved in the last few minutes? - Elaine headed for the flight check-in desks. After all, if she missed this flight, she didn't think she'd have much of a future to look forward to anyway.

***

Carrie felt paralyzed. She started questioning the very existence of the last ten minutes, as the thoughts in her mind continued to try and bind together cohesively.

Her mother was gone. She had blown it. But Frank had caught the rebound? Frank??

"I thought you didn't want to get involved," she finally managed to say.

A couple people looked in her direction, and Carrie belatedly remembered that Frank had already walked out of the terminal. Feeling mildly embarrassed AGAIN (damn that Frank), she dashed out in pursuit.

Over their drinks they'd agreed on a place in the parking lot to activate the time machine, and that’s where she found him.

"I thought you didn't want to get involved,” Carrie reiterated as she ran to where Frank was closing the device back up.

Frank smiled and shrugged. "Things didn't seem to be going well. You looked like you were about to make a rather bad scene, after which you'd probably have insisted on giving everything another try using the time machine, right? This seemed like the best way to avoid getting into the realm of bad paradoxes.”

She glared at him, waiting for the punch line.

He scratched the back of his head. “Besides, I’ve been wondering - should I join the business club, or the improvisation club at school? What do you think?”

“You’re in the business club,” Carrie shot back. He wasn’t about to make fun of her? “Come on, seriously - you told me we wouldn’t be able to change anything. World Wars and all that.”

“Okay, so maybe I was wondering about that too.” He frowned. “Was my improv really so bad? Granted, I was only going based on what you’d suggested, but I think she bought it.”

“I... maybe.” Part of her didn’t want to admit how much of a disaster it had been before his assistance. Not to mention the fact that he’d still been willing to help her out after their constant disagreements.

Usually when a guy displayed that sort of resilience, it was because he would eventually want something more from her. But with Frank, she didn’t get that vibe.

“Still, in the end, my Mom didn't seem sure,” Carrie pointed out. “You should have pushed the point.”

He shook his head. “Saying more, I’d have messed it up for sure. For that matter, you share certain traits with your mother. What would you be more inclined to believe: A vague tale with hints of truth to it? Or a more complete story containing an obvious untruth?"

The blonde grimaced. He was using logic again... which seemed sound. “D-Do you think it worked then?" she asked, unintentionally softening her voice.

"I don't know," Frank admitted. “You know your mother better than I do."

Carrie looked away. "No. I'm not so sure about that," she admitted, biting her lip. "Somehow... my mom wasn't what I expected. She seemed more driven. More severe, even." Carrie slumped. "That's not how I remember her."

"Oh. Well, you were only three, yeah? Maybe she acted differently at home.”

"Maybe." There was a rather long pause, as Carrie wrestled to get the next few words out. "Thank you, Frank. I guess I couldn't have faced her alone after all.”

Frank nodded back. "No problem," he asserted, smiling again. Carrie proceeded to slap him lightly across the cheek. "Ow! What the heck was that for?"

"The roundabout comment you made about acts of physical violence," Carrie concluded, taking a second to appreciate the irony behind her reaction. "If Mom had connected it to my yammering about being her daughter, it could have blown everything.”

Yet she really didn't feel as angry with Frank about that as she felt she should be. She had even regressed back to a gentle slap as a way of keeping the guy at arm’s length.

"Well, apparently THAT part of the discussion never got through," Frank grumbled in reply. He turned to the time machine. “But, putting that aside, are we ready to go back to the present?”

Carrie nodded, deciding to drop the matter. “Your present, my past,” she reminded. “Did you set an exact destination in time?”

“As best as I could. These are less than ideal circumstances - and we still have no idea about the spatial grid. So I guess we'll go with your theory and try to concentrate on my basement lab. At least, I can't think of any better ideas.”

Carrie nodded, pleased that he was still acknowledging her contribution. "Okay," she affirmed. "Let's do it."

Frank pulled out the properly minted quarter. The two teenagers then moved to a position where they could both grip the handle of the device. Frank counted down.

***

There was the vaguely familiar flash of light and the sensation of being sucked into a void. Frank felt himself lose consciousness as before, but it came back to him with the sensation of very COLD water rushing all around.

He inhaled through his nose, regretted it, and fully surfaced, choking and flailing in what fortunately turned out to be the otherwise calm waters of a lake.

Nearby splashing made him aware of Carrie's presence.

"This is SO not your lab,” Carrie shrieked. "What were you thinking about, taking a swim?"

Frank coughed out the rest of the water. “I was thinking about my lab," he countered in an equally annoyed tone. His clothes were weighing him down. "Maybe there's a flaw in YOUR theory?”

She swiped her arm out, sending a small wave towards him.

He hoped the time machine was waterproof.

Wait, the time machine... he wasn't holding the handle any more. "Carrie. Are you holding the time machine?"

"No, I got a BIT distracted by our landing, why?" Carrie retorted. It sunk in right away. "Oh hell," she swore succinctly, immediately diving below the surface.

Frank joined her, but had more difficulty on account of his glasses. Fortunately the water wasn't too deep, and it was relatively clear, but even so it took over five dives to locate exactly where the device had landed.

Carrie’s athleticism was put to good use in retrieving it.

The two teenagers then headed for the nearby shore, towing the device along. Ten minutes later, they had emerged from the water and laid down, gasping on the grass at the edge of a wooded area.

In fact, it was woods all around here, Frank realized as he looked around. Remarkably tranquil too... like they were in some nature park, miles from civilization.

Which was rather problematic.

Forehead creasing, Frank sat up and looked over at Carrie to say something to this effect... whereby the words froze on his lips.

She was DEFINITELY sixteen. He'd remarked on it before, when she'd jumped him to start off this whole escapade in the ravine, but now, as she lay there on her back, in the very wet T-shirt which he’d leant to her...

"So, where do you figure we are?" Carrie demanded as she regained her breath and sat up as well, grabbing a handful of her hair to wring out.

Frank quickly averted his gaze. "How could I know?" he snapped back, feeling flushed. "Near a lake in the middle of a forest somewhere."

“I can SEE that much. Stick another quarter in the machine, we'll have to try again."

“I, uh, didn’t find another one from my current year," Frank admitted, shifting his position to check on the digital readout for the device whilst reaching into his pocket for his coins. "So unless we want a one way trip to the past, I don’t..." his voice trailed off. "Oh damn.”

He looked back up.

“Carrie... some of my tools and all my change must have fallen out of my pockets while we were diving."

Her hands froze where they were still wringing out her hair. “You mean...?”

He swallowed. “Yeah. No matter where or when we are? We're stuck here."

Chapter 9: Part 5a: Breakdown

Summary:

Frank and Carrie split up, lost in their own thoughts, only to come back together once Carrie realizes there's no one else around. Will they be able to devise a way out of their predicament?

Two intruders.

The squirrel scurried up onto a higher branch to get a better view. These two resembled the others who came by every so often, carrying their funny hollowed out tree trunks which they used to float on the water.

However, these ones had apparently tried to use a small black thing to float instead, with less success, and were now getting very vocal about it. Or about something.

The squirrel twitched its nose. Time to escape someplace quieter?

One of the intruders slapped at the other and stalked away from the lake, into the woods. The one left behind called out, but didn't follow.

The squirrel tilted its head before deciding it was safe to resume hunting nuts - of the more edible variety.

***

Carrie Waterson shoved her way through the light underbrush, plucking at the wet T-shirt she was wearing in renewed anger and embarrassment.

In the end, all males were alike. See a pretty girl soaking wet and their minds leap into the gutter. Frank being no exception.

It wasn’t even the staring, not really - it wasn’t that unusual. It was more that she only wanted to put herself on display like this if it somehow benefited her in the end.

Besides, it wasn't her fault that she was soaking wet. It was FRANK’s miscalculation with the time travel device that had dropped them into the lake.

The only positive thing she could say about this current situation was that, according to the device’s readout, this WAS the correct year for him. Meaning back to two years in her past.

Albeit in the middle of June. In a forest. Without any coins to power up the machine again.

Carrie paused in her charge through the underbrush to throttle a tree branch. Ever since she had found the damned device, things had been spiralling completely out of her control. It was incredibly frustrating.

Carrie released the tree and took a few deep breaths.

She realized now that her leg hurt, and looked down at it. She saw that there were a couple of scratches there, one deep enough to draw a trace of blood. Maybe running off into the woods hadn't been so smart. Being under the canopy of trees as she was now, it would also be trickier for her clothes to dry off. It had been sunnier next to the lake.

Carrie made a face. Should she go back?

In retrospect, she supposed that she was slightly to blame, having leaned in right next to Frank without thinking. Still, the way his gaze had fallen down from her face... going back now would be added humiliation, wouldn't it?

"What the hell did I do to deserve this?" Carrie screamed to the treetops.

The only response was the chattering of a squirrel.

***

‘What exactly did I do to deserve this?' Frank wondered as he stared out across the lake.

He’d started the week researching frogs. Now he was stuck three months in the past with a girl who would seemingly become the testiest person in his entire high school.

It's not like he'd dropped the quarters into the lake on purpose or ogled her... proportions on purpose. She’d leaned into him. Okay, so she had been trying to look at the device, but... damn, how had this whole mess happened?

Frank forced himself to acknowledge the answer to that. It was more than the thrill of time travel. He’d wanted to help Carrie out. Because he didn't get to help people out that often.

Whenever he tried academically, people thought he was showing off. And outside of academics, he had trouble socializing.

Oh sure, he joined clubs, but he wasn’t the sort of guy who spoke up, or got invited to parties. No, he spent much of his time working alone, down in the basement. Where things were more familiar.

He had wondered if starting high school would change things up, but if the first couple weeks were anything to go by, it wouldn’t.

Come to think, Carrie herself had become an argument against becoming more sociable. Since his attempts to help her were mostly being met with physical violence.

Still, Carrie had expressed thanks to him for fiddling with the time machine. And for helping with her mother. It had even felt sincere, as opposed to something she’d said to urge him to keep on helping.

But then why was Carrie so... so infuriating as well? Maybe it was a female thing. One he would understand when he was sixteen too.

Frank sighed. Oh well, with Carrie gone, he might as well check over the time machine for any potential water damage.

After wringing out a section of his shirt, Frank knelt over the device. He pushed back on the lever sticking out of it, and the top flipped open, allowing him to peer inside.

The machine seemed to have a tight seal. No water had made its way inside. He noted absently that his miniature camera was still there, but any information it might give would be of limited use to them at this point.

They had no power source.

Still, maybe he could improvise some sort of coin? And force a September arrival? Sure, and create a virus to take down an alien warship while he was at it?

Yeah, he should probably nix his thoughts of improv and stick with the business club - he worked better within a framework. Trouble was, he now needed to subvert the very rules he’d mapped out for this device.

That was a problem.

Though really, what else was there for him to do now - chase after Carrie? Messing with the time machine would at least be productive. He still had his screwdriver and the swiss army knife he'd received for his last birthday. With those, and some whittled twigs or pine needles, surely he could do... uh, something.

Frank glanced over his swiss army knife to see exactly what the attachments were, yawning as he did so.

That gave him pause. He'd been running mostly on adrenaline for a while, not having slept since... well, what with the time traveling, it was hard to tell. But it might be verging on a day and a half now.

Perhaps he should lie down for a minute to clear his mind. It was nice and tranquil here after all, and a break would probably be good for him.

Frank closed up the time machine again, set his glasses by it and lay back down on the ground. He'd just close his eyes for a minute.

***

Frank jolted himself awake some time later when he heard a peculiar sound.

He sat up in time to see a figure (Carrie?) throw a stone into the lake with a splash. Frank fumbled for his glasses. Slipping them on, he realized it was indeed Carrie, and that she had turned at the noise he was making.

"Finally awake?" the blonde remarked. She sneezed a couple of times as she tossed some other stones aside.

"Yeah... bless you. How long have I been asleep?"

"How the hell should I know? You were asleep when I came back, so at least three or four hours. Of course, that's by my watch, which also indicates it's almost sunset, whereas we probably have a couple hours until that actually happens. I officially hate time travel.” Carrie sneezed again.

Frank blinked. "Oh. Well, thank you for letting me sleep," he said uncertainly. It occurred to him that the machine’s readout could use a display for time of day.

"I shouted your name three or four times on my way back, and you didn't answer. Once I found you, I figured you were really tired, so I stopped short of kicking you," Carrie said.

“Ah,” was all Frank could think to say. Maybe this was her way of trying to balance their account, after his help with her mother. Then again, maybe it had simply given her time to dry out.

"Anyway,” Carrie continued, “hoping you have some new plan at this point?"

"I was hoping there’d be some new way of triggering the device," Frank said, running a hand back through his hair. "Though, as my thinking went, I'll need to, uh, improvise something.”

"Okay, so how long are you figuring for the whole process?"

Frank verbalized his thoughts. "Hard to say. The machine isn't lit up without money in it. I may have to find a way into the silver coin receptacle. All with rudimentary tools."

He glanced up to where the sun was.

“Might not get it done while we still have daylight. Did you see any structures arou--"

"What?" Carrie interjected, looking visibly upset. "So I should have kicked you three hours ago?" She advanced, only to sneeze violently twice more in quick succession.

Frank paused, noticing Carrie was somewhat unsteady on her feet. There seemed to be evidence of a cut on her leg too, in addition to the bandaid she'd placed on her knee after her first time trip. "Carrie, are you all right?"

Carrie balled her hands into fists. "NO. I am not all right. I don't know where we are, I don't understand how we got here, you're now saying you can't get us out of here, I've scraped my leg and think I’m getting a cold. Nothing is working right any more.”

She followed her rant up by stamping her foot and sneezing once more.

“The only good thing to have come from this insanity so far was meeting my mom.”

Frank scrambled to his feet also, realizing that he wasn't exactly feeling 100 percent either. "Well... surely we can figure out something," he said reassuringly. “Don’t get unduly distressed."

“Distressed? You think I'm distressed? I'm not distressed. If we're still here in a few days, then you'll see me distressed.” Carrie reached out to grab his arm, stumbled, and nearly fell. “I'm.... I'm not distressed," Carrie reiterated, a shiver running through her body.

Not good. “Um, Carrie, maybe you should sit down. You're looking unsteady."

“Shut up,” Carrie snapped back so harshly that Frank took a step back.

There was a moment of silence before Carrie swallowed hard.

“I didn’t mean that. It’s only, I’ve been feeling progressively worse over the last few hours, both physically and mentally," she admitted. “Also, we're the only ones out here, Frank.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I was running around in the woods for some time, and I never found a house, a road, not even a trail." Her fists clenched and unclenched a couple of times. “So you've got to activate that machine. It's the only sure way we can get out of here in one piece.”

Worse than not good then. “I’m not going to lie to you, Carrie,” Frank said, after an another extended pause. “As much as I want to help out, we're dealing with technology I don't understand. If I try to force the issue - I might break the time machine completely."

Carrie began to yank on some strands of her hair.

"For that matter,” he reminded, “even if I do activate it, there's still no telling where we'll end up. The spatial aspect is still unclear. We could find ourselves worse off, at the North Pole, or in the Sahara Desert, or--"

“NOT helping,” Carrie cut in angrily, raising an arm as if to make a physical strike. It put her off balance, and she dropped down to her knees instead.

She remained that way, shaking in what Frank figured was either anger or pain, even as she let out another sneeze.

"I'm sorry," Frank apologized anew. He took an uncertain step forwards. “Would you like me to lie instead?”

Carrie continued to stare down at the ground. “No. I don’t even know why I’m getting angry at you. I’m sorry, it's not your fault," she admitted.

She shifted her position, to sit.

"It's the fault of whoever invented this stupid device,” she decided. “I mean, how did we end up out here? I hardly moved at all the first time I time traveled. Why would the time machine do this to us?”

Frank rubbed his head as he moved to sit next to her. “I don’t know - what did happen that first time anyway? Before you met up with me that is. I remember you said it involved a link to your mother. Maybe something was pre-programmed, and if you describe in detail, we can distinguish a pattern?”

She turned to look out across the lake.

Chapter 10: Part 5b: Breakdown

Summary:

Things continue to go from bad to worse for the two time travelers. Though they do get to know more about each other, and temporal theory.

‘What the hell,' Carrie thought from where she sat.

She knew she wasn't feeling too well or thinking too clearly, but even so, Frank knew so much by this point that it really didn't seem to matter any more. Besides, keeping secrets was kind of pointless if it ultimately killed you, right?

Carrie turned her attention from the lake back to her time companion.

"There isn't much more to tell about my first trip,” she conceded. "I traveled from one side of the ravine to the other - from the park, to behind my house. It knocked me out. When I tried to get back in my room, I very nearly met my younger self, and shattered a crystal swan which my mom had bought for my fourth birthday.”

Her fingers flexed as she added, “It was her last gift to me. She’d given it to Dad months in advance, to keep until March. I will grant that when it broke, it shocked me, because I never knew who had done that to me the first time it happened.”

She paused for a moment, as Frank looked thoughtful, but he said nothing.

“Anyway,” she resumed, “then I ran to Julie’s--"

"Wait," Frank cut in. "This swan, you knew it had been broken before you even took a time trip?"

"Sure." Now Frank was frowning at her. "What?"

"That's... weird. Leads back into what I was saying about the past being unchangeable. How is it that you might experience that sort of change to your past, and yet my future at our high school has remained the same for you?”

Carrie stared. “Not following.”

Frank sighed. “Relative to you, you’re potentially changing my past right now. Despite that, you’re remembering future events about me, like the clubs I’ll be in. If breaking your swan was a change to your past - why not with me? Why don’t you remember me vanishing in Grade 9?”

“Because you didn’t.”

“And that only makes sense if the past is unchangeable, your trips were always fated, we can’t stop any world wars, and I have no choice but to survive and spend another two years at our high school.”

Carrie let that sink in. "So, what... you're saying that if anyone is going to die out here in the woods, it will be me? Thanks.”

"No,” Frank objected. “Or rather, I didn't mean it that way." He shook his head and waved a hand. “Look, never mind, I don't think it's relevant to the spatial problem. Continue with the story.”

Carrie glared for a long moment before shrugging. “Right, so, I panicked and went over to Julie’s, where there was supposed to be a party, though obviously there wasn’t. Worse, since we only hooked up after my swan broke, her butler didn't even know me. That's when I went back to the ravine and, well, you know the re-- ah-ah-ahCHOO."

Frank pursed his lips. "So, you went across a ravine, to the nearest airport, and then to a mystery lake near some woods. What's the pattern?"

"The fact that they lack any common element," Carrie stated bitterly.

"Hunh," Frank verbalized in response. "Well, maybe nature area-metropolitan area-nature area. Meaning we'll end up somewhere populated next time."

"You're grasping at straws," Carrie accused. "Look, this talk isn't helping. We might as well work together at activating the machine, and hope for the best. I’m taking geography, maybe that’ll be useful?”

Frank sighed, pulling out his swiss army knife again. "Well, here's the main tool we have to work with. I was thinking of whittling down a twig, and for that matter, we might want firewood for tonight.” He stood. “I'll be right back." He turned and headed away from the bank of the lake.

"The underbrush is fairly thick that direction, might have better luck spotting stuff closer to the water," Carrie volunteered as he moved off. Frank nodded and changed his direction slightly as he left their small clearing.

'We're a lot worse off than I thought we were,' Carrie thought as he left. This situation was not only beyond her control, it was starting to look like it was beyond the both of them - beyond anyone’s.

Was it time to go into survival mode? Where would they get food and shelter? What about predators, were there any out here? Carrie was unable to hold back another sneeze. They didn't even have tissues. This was bad.

"Oh well, can't get worse at this point, can it?" she muttered to herself.

Which was when she heard Frank cry out.

“Guess I asked for that,” Carrie groused, standing up and finding the energy to sprint back through the light underbrush in the fading light of late afternoon. "Frank? You okay?" she called out uncertainly.

"Carrie? Watch out, there's a hole,” came a pained reply.

The blonde zeroed in on his voice, paying more attention to the ground. She brought herself up short on the other side of a bunch of bushes. There was indeed a hole of sorts, a drop-off of several feet. With Frank at the bottom.

"Are you all right?" she called down.

"I think I'm bleeding," Frank mumbled groggily.

Perfect. Carrie looked around, spotting a more gentle slope on the right. Calling again upon her gymnastic abilities, she slid down and was soon hurrying up to Frank's position.

"Why weren't you watching where you were going?" she accused. "The terrain out here isn't totally level."

"How was I to know? Anyway, I was lost in thought," Frank admitted ruefully. "Though speaking of watching, my glasses got knocked off, can you see--"

Crack.

Carrie froze two steps away from Frank and looked back down. She lifted her foot.

"Well, this could be funny under other circumstances," Frank finally said dryly.

"Why don't you wear contact lenses like normal people?" Carrie accused as she reached down to pick up the broken spectacles. Realizing only after the fact that she did seem to have picked up a habit of blaming others for issues she was having herself.

"I don't think they're particularly convenient," Frank replied, attempting to stand. He couldn't, and fell back down, wincing. "Besides, I could hardly dip them in saline solution or whatever out here, could I."

Carrie was about to snark back again, but she stopped as she got a good look at her companion for the first time. He was holding his head and his arm had blood visible on the material of his shirt. “Frank, what did you do to yourself??”

"I bounced twice on the way down?” Frank replied, now looking at his arm too. "Possibly hit a particularly sharp root or part of a rock or something. Feels like I twisted my ankle as well.”

"You really have no sense of timing for these things, do you?" Carrie complained.

Shoving Frank's glasses at him and pursing her lips, she bent down a bit to have a look at his wound, opening the tear on his shirt.

“Okay,” she told him. “Looks painful, but you haven’t cut an artery or anything. I can clean it up, and use some torn material as a bandage to apply pressure."

As Carrie reached out to tear off the end of Frank's shirt, he flinched back, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, surprisingly enough they teach us health and stuff in Phys Ed,” she explained. "And I listen in class, and you learn bits and pieces while cheering on the sidelines at football games too. So, may I already?”

Frank slowly nodded.

Carrie started to rudimentarily dress the wound, turning away twice to sneeze. "I don't know what to do about the possibility of infection though," she admitted. "Let's hope you can fix that time machine fairly qui... oh, hell."

Carrie tied off the fabric and sat back to look at Frank.

He glanced down at his broken glasses, which were bent with only one lens intact. He then reached up to rub a bump on his head with his good arm.

"Yeah, I think we have some additional issues now too,” Frank sighed, verbalizing her thoughts.

Chapter 11: Part 6a: Welcome Change

Summary:

Carrie and Frank survive for the better part of a day, but nerves are fraying and the device is not co-operating. Will any other options occur to them while they talk?

"Of all the... how could this... how could you have been so clumsy?" Carrie choked out, embracing the familiar anger as it swept back over her.

“Okay, wait,” Frank said, fiddling with his broken glasses. “True, I have no depth perception. Still, maybe with your help--"

"My help? MY help? What are on about, Frank?" Carrie shouted. “I said my best subject is geography, I don't know the first thing about the blinking lights and circuits in the time device.” She put her hands on her hips. “There, I admitted it. You happy now? So, while your temporal theories will keep you all safe and alive in my past, if I die out here, it will all be your fault.”

She regretted the words as soon as she’d spoken them. That was WAY over the top. But she was sick, and scared beyond belief, and that was such a foreign feeling - she preferred feeling the anger.

Except.

Pushing away the only guy who could help was really, really stupid. Damn it, and after everything with her mother, they were at the point where she didn’t think she had any more tears left to shed...

Frank cleared his throat, cutting into her thoughts. "I'm sorry, Carrie. Truly I am. I did find a couple of sturdy twigs and some dry wood before I fell. How about we at least pick it back up and return to the lake?"

Carrie bit her lower lip, stifling another sneeze. "It’s fine. I’m... I have no intention of dying here, Frank,” she asserted. She felt she couldn’t apologize back, not again - he knew she hadn’t meant it, right? He had to know.

"I know you don’t,” Frank said, and she only belatedly realized it wasn’t in response to her thought. “Let's go back to the device."

Frank struggled to stand up again, succeeding by favouring his right leg.

She offered Frank a hand and supported him as best as she could they struggled back up the slope. Wondering what more she should or could say.

Nothing came to mind. She would control her anger from now on, maybe that would be enough.

The time machine, at least, was still exactly where they expected it to be.

***

"This is so goddamn pointless," Carrie cried out, throwing aside Frank's swiss army knife.

Frank made a note of where it had landed. “We're managing okay," he attempted reassuringly.

“Oh, shut-- Frank, please stop trying to make me feel better,” Carrie revised. She began to count off on her fingers.

“I have a headache, and now a runny nose, and I’m possibly getting a temperature, and I’m hungry, and tired, and goddamn it, you’re no better off, so why am I complaining to you?”

She collapsed at that, putting her head between her knees.

“It’s been over a DAY, and we’re no further ahead.”

They had managed to survive the night. It hadn’t been too cold, and no animals had approached them or their small fire, though Frank had heard a howling at one point. The lake provided them with fresh water, and they had taken a chance on some berries.

Things could definitely be worse. The device, however, refused to accommodate their continued efforts.

Frank rubbed his temples. He was getting used to Carrie's outbursts of emotionalism. They weren't a bad thing, actually.

Sometimes she could spot a futile effort early on, be it in time machine reparation or the poor shelter construction methods they had been attempting during breaks.

If only she was a bit more attentive and could verbalize things in a nicer way... but even there Frank was starting to realize something.

Carrie wasn't especially shallow or prone to violent outbursts. It was more that she preferred keeping a particular distance from people. Which translated into lashing out, keeping others from getting too close.

Was she even aware of it?

He wondered why that was the case, and whether this experience was giving him any insight into her fourteen year old counterpart - his classmate.

Aloud, all he said was, “It's clouding over anyway, maybe it's time for another break."

***

Carrie let out a grumbling noise.

There he was, acting all calm and congenial again. Saying nice things for no discernible reason, offering help without expecting any favours in return. How incredibly naive.

The real world didn't work that way. Being pleasant for the sake of being pleasant only made you into an easy target. Or into a tool that could be exploited.

Under normal circumstances Carrie would personally show Frank the error of his ways... yet right now she was finding this quality of his oddly enviable.

Of course, unlike her, he hadn’t spent a couple years in high school yet, getting jaded. She wondered absently whether the Frank of her time period had really managed to maintain this same outlook on life.

"I don't know if a break will help," Carrie answered with a sigh and a cough. She lifted her head. "We can’t break into the device’s silver coin box. I’ve tried prying at that exterior slot with your knife, jimmying it with your bank card, we’ve pulled apart your mini camera for parts to try and activate circuits, we’ve even fed a whittled down wooden coin into the thing... dammit, I'm ready to just throw it into the fire pit we made."

She took in a deep breath.

“You were wrong, Frank. We should have struck out for civilization this morning, instead of continuing. We're getting nowhere."

“Again, even assuming I could walk well, we have no idea which direction to go," Frank reminded her. He squinted back at the machine through his broken glasses. “Plus we ARE further along - I believe we've managed to readjust the time machine's month and day. Since we’re already in the correct year, we merely need to TRIGGER the thing."

Carrie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yeah. That's what you said three hours ago," she murmured.

***

Frank looked back over in her direction and saw Carrie’s eyes starting to brim with tears.

He was surprised it had taken this long - he’d cried a bit last night himself, after she’d fallen asleep. No need to be brave for the both of them if she was unconscious, right?

For that matter, Frank wasn’t certain if his continued desire to project reassurance was due more to male stereotypes, or the curious temporal situation that seemed to have put her life in greater danger than his own. Since his future still existed in her past.

“I hurt, Frank," Carrie confessed at last. “Physically, mentally, emotionally - I'm not thinking straight any more. A lot of what you’re saying has started to go in one ear and out the other. Worse, those are storm clouds moving in, meaning it's going to rain. I... I'm tired. Maybe... maybe we saved my mother in the past, so now we're being punished. Maybe there's no way out of this for me. Her life for my life. I should have expected as much."

Frank pursed his lips. Carrie was sounding so serious it was scary. “You told me yesterday you had no intention of dying."

"I don't. But maybe it’s not my decision. Maybe you can't fight fate. I can't recall the last time I felt so helpless - unless it's when I finally realized Mom wasn't coming back. Which is probably not a coincidence.”

Carrie lowered her head again, coughing and sniffling at the same time. "God, why is everything coming back to her now... and why is this damn cold making my eyes water so damn much in front of you.”

Frank paused before reaching out to gently place a hand on Carrie's shoulder. She didn’t shrug him off. “Here’s the thing," he said. "I survive another two years relative to you, right? And I'm NOT going to leave you behind. So we must both get out of this somehow. Yeah?” He ventured a smile.

"You say that now," Carrie fired back without even looking up. "But I’ve been thinking about it. If my mom’s now alive in the present, and I don’t remember it, I may have changed history by picking you up too. All we’ve got to point to your survival is my swan - which could have been broken by someone ELSE originally, right?”

Frank frowned. “What?”

“The person who originally broke my swan, I scared them off by arriving, and I took their place. Meaning I AM changing everything, and so my memory of the past is wrong. Ergo, my curiosity and headstrong attitude will kill us BOTH here.”

Frank felt like someone had punched him in the gut. That wasn’t impossible. “Um. Okay, interesting theory,” he yielded, dropping his arm back to his side.

Carrie winced. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it aloud," she sighed. "Maybe there was some hope in what you said.”

"Maybe," Frank said dubiously. He really didn’t want to think too hard about this though. Because her logic seemed sound, and it put him in jeopardy. He really would need to do more time travel research.

Again, assuming they ever got out of here.

Was there some way he could spin this, to keep her from giving up hope? To now keep HIMSELF from giving up hope?

“Okay, on the bright side,” Frank suggested, “the berries we've been eating haven't been poisonous and no wild animals have attacked us. So it’s not like time is actively trying to kill us. It’s all been pretty passive-aggressive.”

Carrie laughed at that, though her laugh was hollow. "Don't say it like that. You'll jinx us," she chided.

She then slugged him in the arm, but without much force behind the blow. He wondered if that was intentional, or merely due to a lack of energy.

Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

Chapter 12: Part 6b: Welcome Change

Summary:

Carrie and Frank finally escape from the past thanks to some unlikely assistance. What will this mean for Carrie's attitude going forwards?

“Did you hear that?" Carrie asked, snapping her head to the left.

"What?" Frank inquired, blinking nervously at her. "I was only kidding about wild animals."

"No, shhh. I thought I heard a person."

Carrie cupped a hand to one ear, straining to hear better. 'Please tell me that wasn't a hallucination,' she thought desperately to herself. 'Please, please... if... if we get out of this alive, I swear I'll pay more attention to the things I do and say with respect to time and space and people and everything, okay? I mean, I’m not going to become a good little girl overnight, but I WILL try! Okay? So please... please let there be someone--'

There was the sound of a deep laugh. Carrie judged it to be less than a kilometre away.

"Check it out," Frank breathed, eyes wide.

Carrie was already on her feet, running with whatever energy she had left, trying to home in on the new sound. She stumbled and almost fell, forcing herself to slow down.

The sky was starting to become even more overcast, so it was getting harder to see in the underbrush.

"Hello?" she called out.

The action sent her into a brief coughing fit. Yet the sounds were closer. Two, maybe three people. People. Oh God, they had been saved, saved...

"Helllloooo?" Carrie called out again, desperately.

There was a pause in whatever discussion had been going on. "Hello?" came a reply at last. "Who's out there?"

Carrie didn't waste her breath replying, she sprinted the remaining distance to emerge in a small clearing. There were three men there, along with two canoes and what looked like a bunch of camping equipment. They were setting out a large tarp.

"Oh God... oh thank God... help, you've got to help us," Carrie gasped out, falling to her knees.

The three men stared at her. It dawned on Carrie for the first time what a sight she must present after recent events. She hadn’t even bathed this morning.

"Who's 'us'?" one of the men asked in bewilderment.

"Me and a friend of mine," Carrie replied. "He needs some medical attention. Actually, we both do. So how did you get in here, and can we get back out the same way?”

A different guy lifted his arm, pointing away from the lake. “We’ve been hiking our way in since dawn this morning," he stated.

Inwardly, Carrie shuddered. That meant they probably wouldn’t get out by tonight, certainly not before the rain. However, she reminded herself, these guys had a tarp here, and supplies. There was hope.

"But... who are you? How did you get out here??" the guy continued.

Carrie opened her mouth to respond.

Before she could, the last man, standing the furthest away, stepped forwards, saying, "I have what you need.”

He then tossed something small at her. Carrie caught it out of reflex and peered down at it in confusion. It was a nickel.

"What?" she asked. "I need this??”

"Yes. Use it to get back home almost immediately. Avoid the rain that way."

The other two guys laughed. "What, she gonna call someone?" the first man inquired, seemingly asserting himself as the leader of the group. "Come on buddy, we said we didn't mind you coming along, but don't start acting crazy, okay?"

The second man made a comment also, but Carrie didn't catch it. Because she'd noticed the date on the coin. It was from this year. Frank’s present.

It wasn't a quarter, but could they use... did he mean... Her head snapped back up.

"You know?" she gasped.

The man who had tossed her the nickel turned away. She couldn’t pick out his features, as the hood of his jacket was up. But his voice was still audible.

"I suspected. Look, it's yours now. Do what you will with it. Just guard it. Don't let anyone take it away from you."

"Why? Who are you?" Carrie demanded, stepping forwards.

He did not speak again.

"Who ARE you?" Carrie repeated, reaching out to grab him by the shoulder - only to be seized by a sudden coughing fit, forcing her to double over.

"Whoa girlie, easy there," said the person she'd conjectured as the leader, as he bent down next to her. "Don't mind whatzizname, he's just tagging along with us because he doesn’t know the trails. Guy seems a bit loopy if you ask me, I wouldn't worry about guarding his loose change.”

He gently patted her on the back.

“You said you have a friend out there,” he continued. “How do we find him? We can always cut our canoe trip short, particularly if the weather forecast isn’t going to hold up. After all, you're looking pretty pale."

Carrie heaved in a deep breath. "I'll be fine. Once THIS guy gives me some answers," she retorted, standing up straight again and pointing. She tried to summon up enough strength for a good rant.

"You're not ready for answers," the figure responded, before she could speak again. "All in good... time." A lightning strike lit up the whole area a split second before he spun.

Carrie found herself reflexively taking a step back, as with the hood in place, his posture did look rather foreboding.

He immediately spoke again, with an unexpected edge to his tone. "Now run," he stated. "Fast. Get back to where you belong."

The heavens opened up and the rain began to pour down.

***

'Why the hell am I running?' Carrie asked herself.

She wasn't the type to simply obey anyone like that. Let alone a stranger. Granted, she was hardly at her best right now... yet the way that mysterious guy had spoken to her, it had seemed so important to do what he’d said.

A branch whacked her in the forehead. Carrie pushed it aside and kept on going.

She decided it would be futile to turn back at this point. She was cold, wet and miserable, with the rain literally pounding down around her. Best to make sure she could get back to Frank.

Besides, it sounded like one of the other well-meaning campers was calling out to her for an explanation. An explanation she couldn't provide.

Let Mister Enigmatic deal with him. Meanwhile, she would be able to think more clearly about things in retrospect.

When Carrie arrived back at the lake where she'd left Frank, she found him huddling with the device under the makeshift shelter they had constructed of branches and leaves. He glanced up hopefully at her approach, looking about as awful as she felt.

"Well?" he inquired, raising his voice to be heard over a crash of thunder and the driving rain.

"Well, we're getting out of here," Carrie stated, producing the nickel as she collapsed down next to him.

Frank stared a the coin in her palm. "What? I... I don't understand."

"I don't either," Carrie admitted.

She shoved the coin into the slot on the time machine. There was a rewarding humming noise.

"For now, just grab the lever and pull with me. I think..." She paused to cough, then attempted a smile. "I think we're going back to your present."

Frank needed no second urging.

***

To Carrie, the feeling of being sucked into some sort of void was becoming familiar. And then the rain and thunder and lightning were all gone.

Carrie blinked her eyes open and looked around. At first, she saw only trees.

She panicked, briefly, before she realized that they were simply in part of the ravine which bordered her house and the park. They’d made it back.

At least, geographically. The time itself being either early morning, or late evening, according to the amount of available sunlight.

"It’s Saturday again," came Frank's awed voice beside her. She turned to meet his gaze, as he looked up from the device. “My Saturday. We did it, Carrie. We survived."

Carrie felt a wave of relief wash over her. "Civilization. Thank Gah-ah-CHOO,” she responded, unable to stifle another sneeze.

"Bless you," murmured Frank.

"Thanks.” Carrie hesitated, then offered Frank a wan smile. "For everything." Before she was completely aware of it happening, one of them had initiated a quick hug.

***

Two hours later found Carrie attempting to tighten the belt she was wearing.

She and Frank had returned to his place, at which point Frank had retrieved his spare glasses, tidied himself up, reset the time machine for her, and then had his mother take him to the hospital to have his arm and head looked at – claiming he’d fallen while out in the ravine.

Carrie knew she couldn't go to the hospital herself, not in this time period. It would raise FAR too many questions. But aside from a few scrapes, her troubles were mainly flu related.

So she was off to HER present, having fortunately found two quarters from her year of departure in her shoulder purse, which had been left down in Frank’s basement.

As Frank had tidied himself, there had been some brief discussion between them as to whether the time machine was still functional. It seemed to be giving off the aroma of burned wood and pine needles, no doubt due to their improvisations.

Frank had offered to take more time to check it out, but Carrie had countered with, “As long as nothing's visibly broken inside, go and get that arm looked at. Before I injure your other one."

She wasn’t willing to be the reason for delaying his medical care.

Once Frank and his mother had left (Carrie hiding in the basement), she taken the opportunity to tidy up a bit herself. Changing out of her wet, dirty clothes, borrowing some old ones belonging to Frank's mother.

It felt prudent. On the off chance she turned up in her present, but in, well... who knew? Nome, Alaska? The only thing was, the pants were a bit big.

A sudden coughing fit reminded her that her health was still up for debate. Carrie finally gave up on the belt. She went to the time machine, brushing her hair back off her shoulders.

“Right. Here goes nothing then," Carrie murmured. One of the coins had already been dropped inside to help Frank with the reset. She wiggled her fingers, then before she could change her mind, yanked down on the lever.

The sensations were becoming almost routine. Carrie didn't even think she lost consciousness this time, but the disorientation was still tricky to work through.

For a moment, she wondered if she'd gone blind, only to realize that she was back in the familiar park, and it was merely dark out.

'Why the park again?', she wondered. She looked down at the device. She’d undershot by a day – they’d aimed for Friday, but it was still Thursday, the day of her departure. Would she have to lie low for twenty four hours?

That’s when a scream cut through the air, accompanied by a brief burst of light, originating down in the ravine. Something about it felt disturbingly familiar.

Immediately on her feet, hefting the time machine, Carrie hurried to investigate. "Hello? Who's there?" she called out, starting down the familiar path to her house. "Who's--"

She stopped.

A scream, a light, a sound effect... that had been HER, hadn't it. Her leaving on her first trip. Which meant it was late evening, and she'd only just managed to beat herself back before leaving in the first place.

Could it have been possible for her to prevent her own departure?

Carrie's head started to throb, and not merely because of that particular train of thought. She felt incredibly weak and tired.

If that really had been her, her bed should be vacant now. Either way, she needed to lie down, and she decided she might as well do so in her room rather than some emergency room, which would only invite more damn questions.

She had enough questions to deal with herself right now, chief among them where the time machine had come from initially, and who that mysterious figure in the woods had been two years ago.

Carrie made her way back through the ravine. Then, using the familiar tree in her backyard, she slowly pulled herself up to her window and crawled into her room. She changed into a nightgown, stowed the time device under her bed, then collapsed on top of her sheets.

Asleep practically as soon as her head hit the pillow, Carrie didn't wake up until the next morning... when her window re-opened, and a future incarnation of herself also crawled into her room.

Notes:

This concludes ARC 1.1: Awareness Of The Device. We've met the two main characters (and my early writing style of changing POV). The next six parts will be ARC 1.2: Awareness Of Her Peers, mostly taking place in their "present day", filling out more of the cast.

Chapter 13: Part 7a: Group Chemistry

Summary:

Carrie and Julie prepare an attack against Frank. But now that Carrie has been time traveling, perhaps she doesn't want to do that any more...

Notes:

NOTE: The following parts (in Arc 1.2) are presented chronologically. Yet Carrie will not behave chronologically in any way. When this story was originally posted elsewhere, I created anchor tags with embedded hyperlinks as an option to follow Carrie as she jumps back and forth within the timeline. Does anyone know if implementing that is possible here?

The last straw was Thursday at lunch, as Carrie took her usual seat next to Julie LaMille on the cafeteria bench.

“Frank Dijora was looking at you during math class today," Julie LaMille remarked.

“Seriously? Of all the nerve," Carrie growled in reply. “That geek is really starting to unnerve me this week, Julie. Not that he's ever struck me as normal, but spying on my house from the ravine three times, now this? It’s almost like I'm being stalked.”

Julie brushed some of her long, naturally curly brown hair off her shoulder as she leaned an elbow on the table. While her hair was not as long as Carrie’s, it still stretched partway down her back.

"And you can't figure out why he's doing it? No one putting him up to it, and you've never led him on or anything?” Julie mused.

“Ha. He wishes," Carrie snorted, absently stirring the cafeteria food around on her plate. "Trust me, I have no use for the biggest mental weirdo in school. He's so straight I bet he wouldn’t even use last year’s math evaluations to study for our test tomorrow."

"Indeed." Julie tapped her chin. "And if you saw him in the ravine again last night too, he obviously didn't heed your warning for him to mind his own business." The corners of her mouth turned up. "I'd say he's crossed the line. Wouldn't you agree?"

Carrie blinked curiously for a moment until she realized where Julie was going with that. "Ohhh. Definitely. First time anyone's done that this term, isn't it," she said, smiling back. "Have anything in mind? Booby trap his locker? Hold his notes hostage? Public humiliation?"

Julie reached into her sweater vest and pulled her little black book out of a concealed pocket in her blouse. "We're in grade 11 now. We should think bigger," she mused, quickly scanning through it. "Looks like Frank Dijora's in charge of the chemicals in the lab this week. We can make a strike against him there tomorrow.”

"In charge of the chemicals? Wait, how do you know that?" Carrie asked. "You're not part of any chemistry club. Uh, are you?"

"No, but Sue is," Julie stated offhandedly, tucking her book away again and pressing the tips of her fingers together. "She still reports to me, you know.”

Carrie nodded. "Of course. What's the plan then?"

"Leave it to me," the brunette said airily. "I'll work out the rest of the details tonight. Tomorrow, Frank will end up in a bit of trouble with his teachers and classmates, and we'll have sent a stronger hint that he should back off."

Carrie began to absently twirl some hair around her finger. “Right. But, chemicals? This sounds a tad more dangerous than what we've done in the past," she pointed out to her friend.

"Don't worry, no one will get hurt," Julie assured. “I’ll see to that. It’s about time we made a stronger example of someone is all. By the way, Kevin should be coming to the party tonight."

"Really? Great," Carrie declared, pushing her concerns back out of her mind. "You think if I flash him a little leg and a smile, I can con a free dinner out of him after the football game tomorrow?"

Julie smiled as she sipped at her milk. "I thought that a likely possibility. You know me, always looking out for my friends."

"At least he's known to have decent taste in food. That wrestler a few months ago had about as much culinary taste as our school cafeteria," Carrie said, looking down at the soupy mixture on her plate once more. She finally grabbed her apple instead. "I think my new head cheerleader status will net me a higher class of dates this term too," she added, taking a bite.

"Perhaps. After all, recognition and status do a lot for a person.”

"MmmHmm," Carrie agreed. She swallowed. "Though it's almost a shame, once you hit the top of the status ladder there's nowhere left to go."

Julie lifted up her glass by the rim, swirling the milk around slightly. "I wouldn't be so sure of that," she murmured.

"Pardon?"

"Never mind. Nothing you need to worry about," Julie finished, smiling serenely before downing the remainder of her drink.

***

"Is it Friday morning?"

Carrie peered out from under her blankets. "Oh boy," she mumbled in reply to her own comment.

Of course, she wasn't exactly talking to herself... she was talking to some future version of herself. A future version who had just crawled in through her bedroom window.

Carrie really didn't feel like dealing with this right now. Honestly, after all the time travel she’d been subjected to, culminating in being lost somewhere in the woods to catch the flu - why had this version come back to NOW?

For her part, the newly arrived Carrie simply dropped her time machine on the ground and pursed her lips.

"Yes, of course it is, this is how things are supposed to go. And you don't feel like dealing with this right now, I know," she continued. "But we've got to prove a point to Frank."

Carrie rubbed her eyes and tried to refocus on her counterpart. "Frank? Why? When?" she croaked out, discovering that her throat hurt.

"Nothing you need to worry about yet," the time shifting Carrie replied, along with a cough of her own. "Suffice to say I'm taking your place at school today. You stay here and be sick and don't let dad know."

"Hnuh. You don't sound completely healthy yet yourself," the Carrie in her proper time argued.

"Well, it's only Sunday morning for me," Carrie admitted.

"So why come back now then?" Carrie rasped, wincing slightly as she hauled herself upright and out of bed. "What's wrong?”

A mildly irritated look flickered across the other Carrie’s face. "Was I really this inquisitive? I hope not. Would be more proof against Frank's claims."

Carrie leaned against her desk for support, wondering how to even address a future version of herself. “Damn it, what are you talking about? WHAT is he claiming??"

"I think I was," Carrie grumbled, brushing an errant strand of hair back off her ear.

Present Carrie opened her mouth to say something back, but future Carrie quickly cut herself off.

"Frank has these notions about time travel, and in particular about the possibility of changing the past," she elaborated. "He'll be able to explain better and in more detail I'm sure. Suffice to say, I'm here to change the past to show that it can be done."

"Huh?" Carrie’s head was starting to throb again. "What part of the past? Why now?"

“Oh, think, prior me. This is the most convenient time and place for a demonstration,” Carrie said brusquely.

“But WHY--" She stopped.

As the two Carries linked eyes, the present Carrie incarnation saw the pain in the eyes of her future counterpart. And she immediately knew what was at the heart of this discussion.

"Mom...?"

The time traveling Carrie bit her lip and turned away. "She's still gone. Our trip to the airport changed nothing."

Present Carrie felt her heart sink.

Future Carrie clenched her fists. “So we're going to show Frank that regardless of his theories, we CAN rewrite parts of history.”

***

One of the main problems with time travel, future Carrie reasoned as she biked to school, will be the way I keep bumping into myself. That had been awkward.

Worse, the argument with the prior version of herself had felt too familiar, lending more credence to Frank's theory. After all, if everything was proceeding as Carrie remembered it happening, this must be the way things had happened two days ago.

So could she conceivably change the way things had been if they were already unfolding as they had the first time?

'I'm not going to let this drive me crazy,' Carrie decided as she brought her bike to a stop outside the school.

After all, there was probably some truth to Frank's theories - why else would he be thinking them - but surely things weren't as quite as fixed as he thought. That was what she was here to prove.

Dismounting, Carrie proceeded to lock her bike up to the rack.

"Carrie. Where were you last night??" came a mildly irate voice.

Carrie turned to see Julie striding towards her. "Last night?" she said, puzzled. What was supposed to have happened on Saturday?

Julie stared. "The party? My place? Kevin? Any of this sinking in? You were expected to make an appearance."

Last night was Thursday. Heck. “The party, God, I completely--" Carrie cut off the rest of that phrase. Forget about Julie's party? She'd be declared insane. "--wasn't... feeling well," she amended, coughing to illustrate. The coughing still came far too easily.

"Oh. You are looking a bit under the weather," Julie admitted, looking at her a bit more closely. "You seemed fine yesterday though, what happened?"

"Oh, probably some 24 hour flu, it won't last," Carrie replied. Except, she knew she would spend most of Friday and Saturday in bed. "...any longer than a couple days," she hastily added.

Should she consider travelling back a day to go to Julie’s party, to negate this conversation? No, things were already complicated enough.

Julie frowned. "You sure you're all right?"

"Oh, yes, certainly." Actually, now was the perfect time to make her little change to the past. "In fact, I was thinking about something we were saying last Thur-- euh, yesterday." Damn it. Restart. "Julie, remember talking about Frank yesterday, and how we should do something about him crossing the line?"

"Yes. What about it?" Julie inquired, giving her another funny look.

"Well," Carrie said slowly, testing the situation, "Have you done much with that yet? I mean, could we maybe hold off on things until Monday?"

Julie raised her eyebrows in reply. "I don't know that I'm well enough to enjoy whatever it is today, you see," Carrie continued, letting out another cough for explanation.

Only belatedly remembering she’d just said she was all right. She needed to start being more careful.

Chapter 14: Part 7b: Group Chemistry

Summary:

Carrie discovers more about her friend Julie, along with the difficulties inherent in attempting to change the timeline. Who will succeed with their plans? And will anyone else learn about the time machine?

Julie took Carrie's arm and quickly led her away from the bike stand as another person rode up.

"I'm questioning how well you feel myself," she remarked, lowering her voice. “Regardless, no, we can't postpone this. Frank is only in charge of the chemical cupboard this week. Plus I already called in a favour from Joe. Why, do you really want Frank to continue stalking you all through the weekend?"

"Ohh. Well, no. But... okay, about the chemicals, what exactly do you have planned?" Carrie asked.

She now wondered if she maybe shouldn't have been in such a rush to execute her plan. Retrieving more details from Frank before departing would have been helpful.

"Carrie, I assured you no one would get hurt," Julie reminded, tossing some hair back over her shoulder. “There’s nothing to worry about, it's just a slightly more elaborate prank than usual."

"But... I'm curious. You know me," Carrie pressed, trying to keep her tone nonchalant.

Julie narrowed her eyes, peering back at Carrie for another couple of moments. Finally she shrugged. "Oh, very well, it does concern you after all."

Julie glanced left and right before smiling proudly.

"See, Joe Drew's also in Frank's chem class and he happens to know which chemicals they're going to need for an experiment today. I gave him a key to the lab's storage cupboard and told him to mix the labels around a little bit – nothing dangerous obviously, they never let students handle dangerous stuff. But enough to make Frank look stupid, or at least careless. We then drop a hint Frank's way as to the reason behind the mixup, and if he's as smart as he seems I don't think he'll push the point with you any more."

Carrie processed that. "So you have a key to the chemical storage cupboard? When did you get that?"

"Sue was in charge of it last week. I got a copy from her," Julie stated with a shrug.

Carrie stared back at her friend.

"Oh, come on Carrie, don't look so surprised," Julie chided. "Haven't I always told you good things will come our way?”

Carrie slowly nodded, which Julie seemed to take as an invitation to elaborate.

“When we were mere Grade Nine students, all we could do was make ourselves known with the freshmen and gain respect from our elders,” Julie said. “It wasn't until last year that we started to ascend the status ladder, picking up the bright followers who could sense which way the tide was turning. It's THIS year that we'll really start getting into the good stuff. At last, we're in a position to take much firmer control of what's going on in school,” her friend concluded, punctuating her final remark by clenching her fist and pulling it down dramatically.

"Julie, you're part of the richest family in the area," Carrie pointed out. "If you want more control over what goes on in school, you can have your parents put a word in."

Julie frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ve missed the point entirely,” she mumbled in reply.

Carrie blinked. "You prefer to counterfeit keys?"

"I didn't counterfeit keys," Julie said haughtily. "As a member of the student council executive, I merely suggested to Sue that it might be a good idea to have an additional set of keys made for times of emergency. Moreover, that I should keep track of them so that they don't fall into the wrong hands. Sue agreed. I may even get around to telling the rest of council about it eventually."

Carrie felt her head starting to spin. Had Julie's schemes always had such a complex basis? "And what's the deal with Joe?"

"Joe wanted to be the captain of the chess club. And oddballs like Frank notwithstanding, I do have certain connections within the geek faction and can pull some strings... but why are you suddenly so concerned about this anyway?" Julie demanded, starting to tap her foot. "After all, we're in the clear and everyone gets what's coming to them, same as always. That’s all you care about, right?”

"Oh, well, sure,” Carrie asserted.

She supposed that she hadn't ever bothered paying close attention to Julie's methods, so there was no way of knowing if this was a recent Grade 11 thing or not.

Come to think, why wasn’t she simply explaining to Julie about the time machine?

Well... that could involve mentioning more about her mother than she'd care to - even Julie didn’t know about the Bermuda Triangle - plus something about Julie having knowledge of the machine bothered Carrie. Some subconscious warning, perhaps?

Except, discouraging or even stalling her friend was turning out to be harder than Carrie had anticipated.

"But... you're sure Frank can't point the finger back at us when he learns who did it? This seems risky," Carrie ventured.

Julie sniffed. "Hardly. Really Carrie, I thought you had more faith. In over two years at school here, have we ever been fingered for anything disreputable? There's never concrete proof of our involvement. Even if Frank tries, I dare say the teachers wouldn't be any more inclined to believe him over me. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Eruh..." Carrie floundered.

Julie had thought everything out remarkably well. But maybe Carrie didn't have to delay things to prove her point about time travel. She could get away with changing the circumstances.

"In that case, here's another idea. How about instead of switching chemical jars, we actually remove one or two of them,” Carrie proposed.

One of Julie's eyebrows shot up high onto her forehead. "What, THEFT?”

Carrie supposed that was quite the escalation, true. “Well..." She paused, trying to think of exactly how to incorporate this. There had to be a way.

Julie cut into her thoughts. “I admire your audacity," the brunette acknowledged. "But no good. Switching, while irresponsible, is subtle and explainable as Frank being distracted. Theft would take a bit more doing... and is a rather drastic first step, even given the geek’s attitude towards you.”

The first bell rang signifying five minutes until the start of classes.

"Okay, wait, I... I don't necessarily mean theft outright," Carrie attempted to explain, the improvised plan coming together in her mind.

"Tell me at lunch then," Julie stated. "Chemistry isn't until fourth period and we shouldn't be late for our homeroom math test."

"But..." Carrie froze. "Math test?"

Julie frowned again. "Carrie, maybe you should think about seeing a doctor. Seriously. You're acting awful weird today."

'I certainly wouldn't mind getting out of here - AND out of the math test,' Carrie sighed to herself. 'But now I have to make sure I'm around to talk to Julie at lunch. Agggh.’

"I... I'll be fine. Let's go," Carrie stated rubbing her forehead.

***

It was worse than she'd imagined. These upper level math tests were hard enough when you actually spent time going over your notes. By Carrie's perspective, she hadn't looked at function notation for several days.

This did not bode well: her B- average could well slip into the C range. All because she'd come here to change time as an example for Frank.

Carrie glanced over briefly at his seat to see him writing. She wondered if he had any clue as to what was in store for him that afternoon. Probably not, if he was still anything like the boy she’d spent time with two years ago.

Looking back at her test paper in annoyance, Carrie doodled a couple of figures onto her page. The way things were going, Frank might still get in trouble for something today too.

Honestly, that alone was starting to bother her, which in turn annoyed her even more.

After all, back in the woods, she had resolved to pay more attention to the things she did, right? And it wasn’t Frank’s fault that she’d interfered in his past, indirectly making him more interested in her at this point in time.

Carrie stopped, gripping her pencil harder. Wait a minute.

At this point in time, Frank had NO IDEA what was going to happen to him today... so would he realize when she changed things? All she'd confirmed in the future (that was, her present) was that something weird had happened during chemistry class. And now she was no longer postponing it.

So would Frank remember what had originally happened in Julie’s plan as well as Carrie’s change? Or was there a chance he'd only remember Carrie’s change and think she was lying about Julie’s original plan?

Carrie's mouth went dry. Damn, this time travelling was becoming a lot more complicated than it had any right to be. She looked back over at Frank's desk again.

He was looking back at her.

She froze up again, and for the first time that year at school, their gazes locked together for several seconds. He seemed uncertain.

Ultimately, Carrie pulled her head back down to her test paper, feeling embarrassed over having been caught.

She'd better concentrate on the test now, and figure out the time stuff next period. There had to be a way to ensure that she had proof for him.

At the back of the class, the only observer of the brief interchange between Frank and Carrie was a young asian girl. She had relatively short hair, though it was long enough to be pulled back into two small ponytails.

This classmate blinked a couple of times in surprise, looking from Frank to Carrie and back.

She then shook her head slightly, and returned attention to her own test paper. Less than thirty seconds later, three more of her math problems had been solved without so much as a glance at her calculator.

Chapter 15: Part 8a: Sound the Alarm

Summary:

Carrie pulls out all the stops to try and change Frank's fate in chemistry. She doesn't feel great about the results. Nor does Julie, as we shift to Julie's point of view.

"You're late today," Julie remarked to Carrie as the blonde sat down next to her on the cafeteria bench.

"There was someone I needed to talk to," Carrie answered slowly.

She felt her heart beating faster in her chest. What she was doing here was practically treasonous. If Julie found out that she had a miniature recorder running in her shoulder bag, there would be hell to pay.

But it would be the proof. For Frank. Of the change to his past.

She'd just acquired the device from the audio-visual lab by way of Bill... Julie not being the only one at school with a circle of personal 'admirers'. Of course, Carrie usually didn't bother to exercise any aspect of her control unless she (or Julie for that matter) felt like it would gain them something.

"Was it to do with the game tonight?" Julie mused in response, before popping the last of her sandwich into her mouth.

"The game?"

Julie swallowed. "Okay Carrie, seriously, what day ARE you living today?"

Carrie bit down on her tongue. Football game, right, she was supposed to cheerlead for that after school... except she really didn't want to hang around in this time period longer than she had to. Things were already dragging on longer than expected.

"Just kidding," Carrie said to gloss over the prior remark. She lowered her voice. "Actually, I'm still thinking about the chemical lab switch."

"Oh. That again," Julie sighed, pursing her lips.

Carrie nodded. "Yes. You wanted to switch the labels on some of the containers, to get Frank in trouble?"

"We've been over this. That's what's going to happen."

"Okay, but try this idea instead. Some of the chemicals go missing from the cabinet - and turn up elsewhere in the lab. Still pretty irresponsible, isn't it?" Carrie proposed, hoping her recorder was getting all of this.

"Not as credible," Julie said, gesturing dismissively. "Anyway, moot point, the lab's empty right now and Joe's already fiddling with things as we speak. If you'd wanted to propose something different you should have talked to me back at the start of lunch."

"What??" Carrie’s subsequent cough nearly sent her into a choking fit. Her head spun briefly; she might need to lie down when this was all over.

"Problem?" Julie inquired.

"Ah, n-no... that is..." Carrie coughed again and fumbled for her water to gain time to think.

Well, this had taken another turn for the worse. Could she now no longer postpone OR change the situation? She forced her brain to kick into high gear.

Okay... she could still alter the outcome.

That is, keep the truth about the chemicals from being discovered today, or even keep Frank from being blamed outright. Though she'd have to figure out how to do that without provoking a lot of questions from Julie.

"Look," Julie spoke up again. "How about we stick to me handling the details on stuff, okay? At least today, since you don’t seem to be on top of your game.”

"Ah, sure," Carrie responded, thinking furiously. "So how was the party last night?" she continued as a way of changing the subject and making small talk.

Julie launched into a mildly elaborate description, which Carrie listened to with half an ear.

Of more concern now was how she'd manage this new alteration idea... in order to be sure, maybe she should attack the outcome from several angles at once? She stifled a sigh, hoping Frank would appreciate what she was doing here. At this point, he'd better.

***

"Mr. Fisk, call the office please, Mr. Fisk," came the voice over the school's public address system.

The tall man grabbed the phone in the science office and hit zero. "Fisk here."

"Ah, Larry, we’ve received a phone call from PARA Chemistry Supplies," stated the office worker. "They said something about a mixup in labels on some of the chemical containers which were sent in to us at the start of the year."

"What? Which containers are those?"

"They couldn't be specific, they're still following it up. At this point they're contacting affected locations and indicating they'll get back to us with more information when they know more."

"I see. Thank you very much then, keep me informed," the chemistry professor acknowledged with a grumble before hanging up.

"Troubles?" mused one of his colleagues from behind her desk.

"Possibly," sighed Larry Fisk. "This would come up when I have a class to teach in ten minutes. But we haven't had any problems so far this term, and all the chemicals we're using today are ones we’ve used previously this September. I'm just going to go and verify that; left the lesson notes on my lab desk."

His colleague acknowledged him with a nod before turning back to her paperwork.

About two minutes later, another announcement came on over the PA system: "Would a member of the custodial staff please report to room 212, custodial member to room 212."

Three minutes after that, Larry stormed back into the office.

"I do NOT believe this!" the teacher announced to no one in particular.

"More trouble?" his colleague asked, looking up once again.

"Definitely," came the irate reply. "Not only can I no longer find my notes for today's experiment, but someone left the water running in the sink. The drain was plugged, so now there's a puddle on my classroom floor."

Mr. Fisk began to sift through the papers on his desk. "Fortunately I noticed in time, though there may be a delay in starting class. And I'll have to do this lesson from memory, borrowing a copy of the experiment from one of the students. I REALLY hope this isn't some juvenile prank. It's getting to the point where we may have to lock up more than just the chemicals in this school.”

"Oh, come now... surely you don't think this was deliberate? The sink wasn’t on full blast or anything, was it?"

"Well, no, no, but at the very least it's irresponsible," Larry retorted, picking up his course textbook and shaking it in his associate's direction. "Thank goodness it's almost the weekend. I tell you Maureen, if one more idiotic thing happens this afternoon, I'm really going to get upset.”

***

It hadn't worked. The water on the floor, the hidden notes, the faked call, none of it.

Carrie swayed slightly on her feet from her position outside of Room 212; she was skipping her own afternoon class. Inside, she could hear Mr. Fisk requesting to borrow someone's notes and giving no indication that he wasn't going to proceed with their experiment of the day.

How was it possible that things weren't changing? Could Frank have been right? Could she not change the past? Had she now run out of time?

"So, I'm going to provide a brief demonstration of what I want you to do," Mr. Fisk stated. "Frank, bring me the sodium bicarbonate from the cupboard."

'No, no, no, NO,' Carrie thought to herself, clenching and unclenching her fists at her sides. 'It's not supposed to happen this way. I have to be able to change things. I will NOT be denied this.’

A quick look showed that, other than her, the hallway was deserted.

So, making a split second decision, Carrie dashed down the corridor, yanked down on the fire alarm, and ducked into the nearby washroom amid the loud clanging of bells.

It occurred to her ten minutes later, as she crept out of the now empty lab room 212, that time traveling back a few hours to take another run at things might have been a more prudent course of action.

On the bright side, there were no working cameras in this area that might identify her as the one who had triggered the alarm, then broken the lock on the chemical cabinet.

On the down side, she felt more guilty over her recent actions than she had felt at any point in recent memory.

***

Julie leaned onto the low chain link fence which enclosed both the track and the football field, observing the proceedings with a frown on her face.

Not because their team was losing (although they were) but rather because Carrie was not out there, showing off with the rest of the cheerleaders. Her friend had been acting decidedly weird today... not to mention missing her party last night too.

There had to be a reason.

Julie began to drum her fingers idly on the fence. In just one day, Carrie had lost track of recent events, questioned Julie more than usual about her plans, shown up late for lunch and left early without an explanation, been one of the last students Julie had noticed departing the school after that big false fire alarm, and to top it off Carrie was now not taking the opportunity to flaunt her gymnastic abilities in front of an audience.

Any one thing Julie would have been able to simply write off as her being sick, but taken together... it was decidedly weird.

Then there was the fact that their plan against Frank had failed, completely wasting the favour by Joe. Did that relate at all?

Part of the reason she had chosen Carrie as someone to hook up with two years ago was because she'd sensed in the girl a streak of self absorption and conceit. This, coupled with the fact that Carrie was good looking - enough to make any normal adolescent male turn their head - yet not so stupid as to hear an echo if you shouted into her ear, made her a perfect choice.

Julie could do things Carrie wanted, and in turn Carrie was bright enough to do what Julie needed, so that they would both come out on top.

But was it possible that Julie had been mistaken about Carrie's egotism? Was Carrie now developing more of a conscience? Or was Julie merely being paranoid, given that the next few months could well be the pivotal ones?

"Hey, Jewels," came a voice from behind her.

Julie didn't even turn, as there was only one person who called her by that nickname. "Phil," she acknowledged curtly.

Which, she reflected briefly, was also a nickname of sorts, despite being his name. After all, most people referred to Phil Clarke by his last name - as he preferred. But Julie was a special case. Clarke had indicated having some feelings for her last year, which had resulted in their current... ‘relationship’.

In other words, a barely official hands-off one, Julie not allowing herself to succumb to rampant emotionalism. Still, Clarke was a refreshingly simple person at times, a quality she appreciated, and neither of them were currently seeing anyone else.

"Troubles?" Clarke inquired as he reached her position.

"I'm not sure," Julie admitted.

There was a pause before she finally turned her head to look up at her blond classmate. Looking up being a necessity, as Clarke was one of the taller boys in class. But despite this, and his rebellious style of shoulder length hair, he looked a lot more imposing than he actually was.

"Did Carrie strike you as being particularly... weird today?" she asked him.

Clarke blinked back down at her. "Weird? I dunno. Yeah, I guess so, given how she looked and ran off and all that."

"You mean the way she left the school grounds after the fire alarm went off?"

"Huh? No, no, never saw her then. Meant at lunch, in the drug store."

Chapter 16: Part 8b: Sound the Alarm

Summary:

Julie worries that there's something up. Luci knows that there's something up. Frank and Carrie have not been very subtle.

Julie stared at Clarke. "Carrie was in the drug store during lunch? What was she doing there?"

The tall blond shrugged. "Buying cough medicine, I think? I said 'hi', she sort of blinked at me then hurried away without a word. Looked a sight worse than in homeroom too, guess the math test took a lot out of her."

"Really? That's funny," Julie mused, her forehead creasing. “Carrie’s condition seemed to have improved when we were talking in the cafeteria. What time did you see her?"

"Time? Dunno... slightly after noon I guess. 12:15?"

Julie shook her head. "That can't be right, she was talking with me about then," Julie refuted. "And, athlete or not, even Carrie's not fast enough to get from the school to the drugstore in mere minutes."

"Yeah? But I'm pretty sure it's right," Clarke countered, scratching his head. "Met up with some of the other guys from the basketball team about 12:30, so couldn't be later than that."

"Phil, Carrie couldn't be in two places at the same time," Julie explained patiently. "Are you sure it was her?"

“Pretty sure? Looked like her, blonde hair, blue hairband and all. Different shirt from the morning though. And I guess I was a few metres away. Plus she ran off without even a wave. So, yeah, maybe not.”

Julie looked at Clarke for another couple seconds before turning her attention back to the game field. He had no reason to lie. So, what was the explanation.

“You think she's got a long lost sister she's never mentioned before?" Julie wondered aloud. Heck, if the person in school today hadn't really been Carrie, it could explain the weirdness.

"What, you mean twins like Laurie and Tori or something?" Clarke said in confusion.

"I don't know," Julie said, drumming her fingers on the fence again. She was reaching now, wasn't she. "Maybe I'm overreacting. But I have the feeling that there's something going on here that I don't know about. You know I don't like that."

"Yeah, well, you'll figure it out. You always do," Clarke reassured her. "I can ask around if you like."

"No, no," Julie said, gesturing dismissively. "After all, this could be nothing, so I’ll handle it myself. Oh, not a word of my investigating getting back to Carrie though, all right?"

Clarke shrugged. "Sure, Jewels. Uh, why not?”

Julie pushed herself away from the fence, turning to lean back against it as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Because. If I'm wrong about there being something up, I don't want to have jeopardized my relationship with Carrie.” Her eyes narrowed. "While if I'm right? I don't want her to be prepared for my reaction."

***

Frank walked up the street towards his house, rubbing his forehead with one hand. The day hadn't gone how he'd expected.

Then again, what had he expected? Carrie to run up to him before first period and ask for his help in learning more about the time machine? That wasn't her style, and he knew it.

Still, this had to be the day after her trip. It was the day after Julie’s party, after all. So he'd figured on some reaction from Carrie, in particular after she presumably discovered that she still didn't have a mother.

Something more than just turning up at school as if everything was normal.

Was it possible that Carrie was trying to forget all about the device and continue on with her life as if nothing had happened?

Frank paused in his walking. Boy, he hoped that wasn't the case. After two years of research, it would be nice to see it actually pay off somehow.

However, Frank mused, as he slowly continued on his way, Carrie pretending nothing had happened wasn’t terribly likely either. And given the glance they had exchanged that morning in class, she now knew that he still knew about her trip, so they'd have to face off some time. Right?

Though there had been something else in her expression, something Frank couldn't quite put his finger on... something that had seemed out of place.

He shook his head.

Oh well. As he had conjectured yesterday, it was looking like any discussion between him and Carrie about the issues surrounding time travel might have to be initiated by him. Not something he was particularly looking forward to, but something he should do before Carrie got any wild ideas in her head. Perhaps this weekend.

Walking up his driveway, Frank noticed his mother's car was there. She must have gotten away from work early. "Hello?" Frank called out as he opened the door and dropped his bookbag by the stairs. "Mom?"

His mother peered around the corner at the end of the hall. "Hello dear," she said with a smile. "I'm starting on dinner. In the meantime, you have a classmate waiting for you in the sitting room.”

Frank blinked. A guest? He never had guests. The only person he could think of who might have come over would be Luci, to ask about math problems or something.

"Hello?" Frank repeated, advancing forward a few steps to look into their living room. "What's..." His voice trailed off in surprise.

Frank's guest stood there, a vexed look on her face.

"I..." Carrie cleared her throat and spun away from him to face the window. "You have to reset the damned device so that I can travel back to my present, which is this Sunday," she stated crossly.

***

At that moment, some blocks away, present day Carrie stumbled back into her bedroom and, almost as an afterthought, glanced underneath her bed. There was only one time machine there. Her double from the future must have picked up the second one at some point during the day.

Who knows when though... could have been after her father went out, allowing her to shower and sneak down into the kitchen to make soup.

Or while she'd been asleep that afternoon.

Or perhaps it had been around lunchtime when she'd mustered up the strength to go out and buy cough syrup.

She supposed it didn't really matter. Though, crawling back into bed, Carrie decided she felt well enough now to really think things through without the thoughts making her head spin.

It seemed like Frank would have some notions regarding how the past could change, which impacted on her attempt to save her mother. Hence Carrie herself would come back to change something at school today, and disprove his theories. Sensible enough. But what was it she had decided to change then? What had been due to happen at school on Friday?

It would need to be something Frank would take notice of, and recognize as having been changed. So what was he likely to be involved with?

The lightbulb clicked on.

Wasn't Friday the day that Julie was going to do something with chemicals to get Frank in trouble? As payback for his spying on her?

Carrie winced. Now knowing what she did about his ravine investigations, doing something so mean... it didn't feel right.

But then, this was perfect.

When Carrie felt better, she'd travel back to sometime this morning, and get Julie to postpone - or even call off - the whole affair.

Which, knowing Julie, might be more difficult to do than it sounded... but she could work out the details later. Nodding to herself, and letting out one more series of coughs, Carrie pulled the covers back up over her head to get some more rest.

***

A short time later, a young asian girl with relatively short hair done up in two ponytails picked up her phone, dialled a number and waited for someone on the other end to pick up.

"Hello, Mrs. Dijora? It's Luci. I was just wondering, is Frank home yet?” A pause, during which Luci raised one of her eyebrows. "Oh, no, don't bother him then. If I might ask though, who else is down in his lab?"

Luci almost dropped her phone in shock.

She quickly recovered. "Did this Carrie have a blue hairband on?" Another pause. "Oh, no, nothing's wrong. I'll call back later. No message."

Luci hung up the phone, frowning. Then, after a minute of thought, she dialled another number.

***

Two days later, early on Sunday morning, a girl with long naturally curly brown hair picked up her phone, dialled a number and waited for someone on the other end to pick up.

"Hello, Mr. Waterson? It's Julie. I was just wondering, is Carrie feeling better yet?” A pause, during which Julie raised one of her eyebrows. "Oh, then I just missed her? If I might ask, where was she was headed?"

Julie almost dropped her phone in shock.

She quickly recovered. "You're sure it was someone named Frank who called?" Another pause. "Oh, no, nothing's wrong. I'll call back later. No message."

Julie hung up the phone, frowning. Then, after a minute of thought, she grabbed her shoulder bag and ran for the front door.

Chapter 17: Part 9a: Present Tense

Summary:

It's Sunday, and Carrie heads back into the prior parts, despite Frank's reluctance. Causing Julie to become even more suspicious that something is amiss.

Carrie took a half step back as Frank opened the door. He looked older. Which, she immediately reasoned, made perfect sense. The last time she'd spent any amount of time with him had been two years ago.

Following that, she'd traveled forwards in time to her present, then spent Friday and Saturday in bed recovering from their experience in the woods. This meant that by her internal clock, he had aged two years in two days - certainly enough to fluster her momentarily.

"Carrie," Frank greeted with a hesitant smile. "I'm glad you agreed to come over."

"Yes, well, you made it sound important on the phone." Carrie hefted the time machine at her side, glancing around the area outside Frank's house. "Perhaps we could talk inside? I am taking a social risk in coming here, and I trust we can get this business over with quickly."

***

Frank stared. Get the intricacies of time travel over with quickly? He didn't hold high hopes of that, but decided not to push the point just yet. At least she'd agreed to come.

Letting Carrie in, the two of them proceeded towards Frank's lab in the basement, passing Frank's mother in the hall.

"Hello, Carrie. Nice to see you again," Mrs. Dijora said with a smile.

Carrie wheeled momentarily, opening her mouth in surprise but managing not to say anything until the both of them had retreated downstairs.

"Frank... what the hell was that about?" Carrie demanded, putting down the time machine and spinning to face her companion, hands on hips. "When has your mother ever seen me?"

She then went into a brief coughing fit. Perhaps even two days of rest hadn’t been enough time for Carrie to recover.

Frank now had a decision to make. Should he mention how a Carrie had visited him on Friday, asking him to make adjustments to the time machine so that she could return to Sunday, which was now the present...?

No, that was this Carrie’s future. It would only complicate matters.

"Let's talk about that later. Suffice to say, I know you're planning on traveling back in time to do something to the timeline. That's why I called you here. As I said on the phone, we have some issues to discuss first."

Carrie gestured vaguely with one hand. "Yes, yes. I am, in fact, aware of your theory concerning the past being unchangeable, and how that would impact my mother. Obviously I can't accept that. In fact, the main reason I agreed to come was to tell you about a way I can disprove your theories."

Frank rubbed his chin. He'd partly anticipated that reaction, given the attitude of the Carrie (Carries?) he'd seen on Friday. "Okay - so how exactly do you plan on disproving them?"

Carrie smiled. "I take it that something weird happened on Friday during your chemistry class."

Frank nodded slowly, wondering where she was going with this. "You could say that."

“Then I will go back to delay that event. I trust that, once I've accomplished this, we can make more formal preparations to the effect of saving my mother," Carrie concluded.

Frank shook his head. "Hold on. This is exactly what I want to talk to you about. A trip to Friday isn't going to change events any more than our trip to thirteen years ago did. And I can explain exactly what--"

"No, you let ME explain something here, Frank," Carrie retorted, jabbing a finger in his direction. "No matter what you're about to say about changing and unchanging history, if it's not going to bring my mom back, I simply cannot take your word for it. You of ALL people know how much she means to me.”

Carrie paused, coughing again, but quickly continued on before Frank could speak.

“And don’t you dare say I haven’t thought this through. It’s been on my mind for the last twenty-four hours. Lying in bed with my Dad coming in every so often and going through the motions of offering me soup or Tylenol or whatever it takes to make it look like he cares... before he wanders off to work in his study for hours at a time. Anything to keep from spending more time around me than he has to. Well, I'm tired of it. And at last, at LAST I can *DO* something about it."

Frank felt a tightness in his chest. It had been two years since he had been witness to the unhappy girl lurking behind Carrie's carefree exterior. Two years of seeing the persona she presented to the school instead. Now, that more vulnerable girl was back - making what he had to say that much more difficult.

"So... is this test really necessary to convince you of my sincerity?” Carrie pressed, off his silence. “Or will you help me save my mom regardless?"

"Carrie..." Well, he couldn't lie to her. "Carrie, I'm sorry, but I can't go along with any plans involving futile attempts at changing history. My research has shown that this would only result in unnecessary danger to us. Now, I CAN explain why if you'll simply--"

She didn’t give him a chance to explain.

***

”I don't care why," Carrie fired back, biting her lip to keep her emotions in check.

She felt like hitting him. Futile attempts indeed. For some reason, when Frank had called her earlier, she'd thought maybe it was because, despite whatever theories of his that her future self had referenced, he’d truly wanted to help... like he had when he was fourteen.

Instead, he wanted to explain why things were impossible.

No way. She, Carrie Waterson, would make things possible. Then, once Frank saw her proof, he would HAVE to become more open to the subject of changes.

"Carrie, wait," Frank began again. "You don't understand--"

"Damn it Frank, don't you get it? I don't WANT to understand," Carrie almost shouted.

She located her prearranged coin and plunked it into the time machine, activating the circuits.

"My mind was made up before I came here, and you haven't changed it. This machine is still set for last Friday. You know my plans for your science class, so there’s nothing more to be said." Carrie grabbed the lever to activate the time displacement.

"Wait," Frank said. He reached out towards her. “At least take provisions with--"

Carrie never heard the rest.

There was that familiar sensation of a void sucking at her, and the next thing she knew... she was falling from a height of about six feet off the ground.

Carrie instinctively tucked her body to cushion her fall. The landing was still a bit jarring, but it was also on grass, thus Carrie found herself none the worse for wear.

She looked around. The time machine had fallen next to her. She was in her backyard. On what the readout said was Friday.

So, time for her to "make history", in a manner of speaking. Scooping up the time machine, Carrie hurried over to the tree that would allow her to climb up into her room.

***

Julie leaned back against one of the many trees on Hickory Avenue. Her arms were crossed, her foot tapping on the ground, her gaze fixed upon a house across the street.

She'd bicycled over to Frank Dijora’s place immediately after learning that Carrie had left her own house after being called by someone named Frank. Because as far as Julie knew, this was the only Frank that Carrie would have any connection to.

Julie wondered again whether there was a further link between Carrie and the failed chemistry plans against Frank on Friday.

She had been in time to catch sight of a blonde girl ducking into the house. Had it been Carrie? She’d been too far away to tell, but Julie knew that Frank had no siblings.

She glanced at her watch. The blonde girl had been inside for close to five minutes now. Could Julie could find someone to pay an unscheduled visit to Frank's house and report on what was happening?

Yet, if this was nothing, that would be a waste. While if it was something, the selected someone could learn about the potential problem developing with Carrie.

The sound of running footsteps cut into Julie’s thoughts. She turned to see Carrie herself running down the other side of the street.

"Damn," Julie hissed, ducking back behind the tree and out of sight. When she heard the runner turn at Frank's driveway, she again peered discretely around the trunk.

Yes, this was definitely Carrie, and she seemed to be toting a black box, maybe a cash register. Julie proceeded to watch in astonishment as Carrie reached the front door and barged directly into Frank's house as if she owned the place.

Julie shook her head to clear it.

Maybe that hadn't been Carrie. But it had sure looked like Carrie, even sprinted like Carrie would. Yet... if that HAD been Carrie, what about the blonde who had arrived before?

"Maybe Frank has visiting cousins who look like Carrie?" Julie rationalized aloud to herself.

Fat chance. Baffled, the brunette shook her head and resumed tapping her foot on the ground.

Something was definitely going on that she didn't know about. It was time to call in extra support. Julie reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone.

Chapter 18: Part 9b: Present Tense

Summary:

Carrie returns to Frank's house, but not the Carrie that one might have expected. Julie begins to put more pieces in play to figure out the situation.

Frank stared at the place where Carrie had been standing, his eyes wide.

This had been his first look at a temporal shift in progress. There had been a bright light, forcing him to blink, and... maybe some sort of sucking sound? Hard to say. And then no more Carrie.

At last, that fact fully registered, and Frank smacked his palm against the lab table in frustration. Carrie was gone, and she hadn't let him explain things.

"I should have prepared better for this talk," Frank chided himself.

Though to be fair, he had been going over what to say to her ever since he'd sent off the Carrie who had requested his help on Friday. The very same Carrie who had only now left for the past.

In fact, now that he thought about it, if this had been the necessary sequence of events leading up to Carrie's arrival in the past, this future couldn't have been changed in much the same way that Frank had reasoned that the past couldn't be altered either. Awkward.

And now both events were in the past and out of his control.

Which was when Frank heard a commotion upstairs. He hurried to the bottom of the basement staircase, even as the door at the top opened. Standing there was...

"Don't travel into the past," Carrie shouted, taking the steps two at a time.

"What?" was all Frank could think of to say.

Carrie hit the landing next to Frank and looked around the basement. Breathing heavily, she was still able to let out a sigh.

"I missed myself then," she realized. Carrie moved to set down the time machine, in order to wipe some sweat off her forehead. "Well, as I said, I had to at least give it a try. Right?"

Frank frowned. "Yes. Of course," he said, feeling at a loss.

"Frank," came a voice from the top of the stairs. "Did someone just run into the house??"

"Uh, it's okay," Frank called back up to his mom. "It was just Carrie. She needed to... check on something outside.”

"Oh," the voice replied. "Carrie? Could you please make sure to close the front door next time?"

"Certainly, Mrs. Dijora," Carrie called back.

The blonde shook her head, turning to look back at Frank.

“That’s it? You know, your mother’s pretty trusting of me being down here with you, seeing as we only just met on Friday. Heck, I wouldn't have even met her then, except for how she was driving up as I was seeing if you'd arrived home yet."

Frank made a little shrugging motion. “My parents are often pleased when it looks like I'm doing anything sociable. But - and forgive the question - where and when did you come from?"

Carrie blinked. "Ohhh, right. Later today. Sorry about barging in, I didn't think I had much time." She exhaled. "Which I didn't. Damn it. Damn it all."

She leaned on his table, shaking her head. "I won't bother trying again. At least, not yet. I'm outta coins, and tired after that sprint. Heck, I’ve been awake most of Friday as well as the afternoon here talking with you, so I'm due for a rest."

Things started to click. "We're going to have a talk in a little while?" he ventured.

“Sure. Oh, right. You don’t know, even though you did when I left." Carrie shook her head. "This time traveling will take some getting used to, huh?”

Frank simply nodded. Carrie took a deep breath and wiped off her forehead one last time, completely regaining her composure.

“No point talking more until you’re caught up then. If it's at all important, when I arrived I was about a block away from here. Good luck figuring out the machine? You might as well keep your apple too, I'll eat when I get home." She tossed the piece of fruit onto the lab table.

"I'm sure this will make more sense at the end of the day," Frank decided.

"Probably," Carrie answered with a shrug and smile. "Oh, and Frank... I really am sorry about hitting you like that. But you need to avoid pushing my buttons that way. Okay?”

Frank simply nodded again. Then, with a quick wave, Carrie was off up the stairs. She departed the house moments later.

Frank continued to stand where he was for a couple of minutes, running back through that conversation in his mind.

"This must be some discussion we're going to have," he concluded aloud. He glanced over at the newly arrived apple on his table. “And since when do I start giving out fruit?"

***

Julie slipped behind the tree again. Carrie was now leaving Frank's place, and this definitely looked like Carrie, be it the running girl (which seemed most likely), or the blonde from before.

Julie watched discretely as Carrie turned and headed back in the direction of her own house. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry this time. Julie pursed her lips.

Should she track this departing Carrie? Or maintain surveillance on Frank's house, in case there was still a second Carrie inside? After all, Clarke had supposedly seen a second Carrie in the pharmacy the other day.

Wait, what about that black box, where was it? Still at Frank’s?

Even as Julie contemplated her options, she saw the person she had called minutes ago turn the corner a block away. She smiled, quickly deciding on how best to proceed.

***

“Carrie?"

The blonde cheerleader turned upon hearing her name, seeing Julie riding up on her bicycle. "Julie," Carrie greeted with a slight wave. "No one driving you about town today?"

Julie quickly gave Carrie the once over as she pulled up. No black box. Nothing suspicious about her friend. In theory.

"Nope," Julie answered. "Have to keep fit somehow after all. Oh, good to see you've recovered from your illness. Out doing anything in particular?"

Carrie’s hesitation was brief. "Not as such,” Carrie answered, shaking her head. “Just taking a walk. Actually, I’m headed back home for a nap... not quite feeling a hundred percent yet.”

"I see," Julie responded. “I ask because I called your house earlier. Your father said I'd just missed you, but he also mentioned something about Frank calling you too. Now, if that geek is still bothering you, I have been considering alternate ways of dealing with him in the coming week..." She let her voice trail off.

"Ohh. Well... I'm not sure that's altogether necessary," Carrie replied, now looking visibly uneasy.

"Really?" Julie mused, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes. See, everything was a big misunderstanding," Carrie said. She began speaking in a rush. "Frank was actually researching physical education. And with me as head cheerleader, he was watching me to try and get a sense of where my abilities come from. The guy simply sucks at being discrete.”

Julie's raised eyebrow twitched. “Are you telling me that you’re fine with him looking at you now?”

“Oh, hell no. Thing is, he's going to stop. And I got him to agree to give me some pointers in math, to make everything up to me. Since I know I did badly on Friday's test," Carrie added with a grimace. “So, that’s why I stopped by his place.”

Julie kept her expression neutral. The explanation? It was plausible. But Carrie was good at working her way out of tight situations. That’s why she was such an asset to Julie. Usually.

"If you're having trouble with a subject, you know I could have found someone to help you," Julie observed.

"I didn't see any need to trouble you. Besides, Frank is getting top marks in our class."

"True, he is."

Julie allowed the tension to remain for a couple more seconds, before she smiled again.

“Okay, so don't let me keep you here talking if you're still not well. I'll see you tomorrow in school?" she added.

Carrie nodded. "Sure, talk to you then."

With that, the two girls waved and Carrie resumed walking down the street. As such, she couldn’t see Julie's eyes narrow. “I’d better not find out that you're lying to me,” Julie whispered to Carrie's retreating form.

The brunette then turned away to head back home herself - she had some serious thinking to do before checking up on the surveillance at Frank's house.

***

Luci glanced at her watch. Two o'clock in the afternoon. She could be at home, getting a head start on the next unit in one of her courses.

Instead, she was here on Hickory Avenue. Staring at Frank's house. Were her priorities really in the right order?

"Fancy meeting you here," came a voice intruding into her thoughts.

Luci looked up to see Clarke approaching her.

Luci half smiled. "I could say the same," she remarked back. She glanced over towards Frank's house then back at Clarke. "Though contrary to what you may be thinking, I'm just passing by."

“I’m not thinking anything," Clarke assured her.

"Mmm hmmm," Luci muttered as she eyed the tall blonde boy. “And you being around has nothing to do with Julie?”

Clarke visibly hesitated. "Should it have something to do with her?"

Luci pursed her lips. "Julie does occasionally have this need to check up on people is all."

Again, Luci glanced towards the nearby house, before her gaze returned to Clarke.

“Speaking of,” she continued. “Do you know of any specific reason why Julie might want someone to check up on Frank?"

Clarke crossed his arms. “Sounds like a question for Julie, not me."

"Mmm hmmm," Luci repeated.

They both stood there in silence as the seconds ticked by.

"Julie's just using you, you know," Luci finally said. "So you should never feel obligated to do things for her."

"Perhaps," Clarke responded slowly. "But you really don't know Julie like I do. No one does."

With that, the two teenagers continued to peer at each other. Their staring match was only broken when Clarke spotted Carrie, who had hurried around the street corner two blocks away. She was now headed towards them, and seemed to be carrying a black box of some sort.

Chapter 19: Part 10a: Time Doubt

Summary:

At long last, a discussion of temporal theories. Unsurprisingly, Frank and Carrie are approaching it from different perspectives. Which has certain consequences.

Carrie blinked as Frank opened the door. This time, he looked just as he had two days ago. Aside from his clothing.

She smiled triumphantly. "I did it," she declared. "I changed the past."

"Ah. You're the Carrie back from Friday?"

Carrie frowned. "Who else would I be?"

Frank shook his head. "Never mind. Come in, we need to discuss this history changing that you claim to have accomplished."

Carrie was barely able to contain herself until they'd arrived downstairs.

"All right," she stated, putting down the time machine. “Sorry for not saying more on Friday, but time travel is confusing enough without me possibly explaining stuff to you before I leave to do it. But now... well, okay, first, what is the weirdness you remember from Friday’s chemistry class?"

Frank leaned against his lab table. "The fire alarm went off and the school was cleared out. Upon returning to class, we discovered that some of the chemicals in class had been spilled or mixed up during our absence. Vandalism was suspected."

Carrie clapped her hands. “That’s what I changed,” she said. “The first time around, Julie had a plan to switch up the chemicals, to make you look stupid.” She fished the small recording device out of her pocket and tossed it onto the table. “And I have the proof of that original history right there.”

Frank’s eyes widened. "Julie planned--" He cut himself off, passing a hand over his forehead. "Never mind. Listen, Carrie, I suspected you'd been trying for something like this when you were here after school on Friday. The thing is, whatever you were setting out to change... whatever Julie's original plans were... they never happened."

“I know. Because I changed them," Carrie stated matter-of-factly.

"That’s not what I mean. Sure, you affected things, but in the end you simply fulfilled what had already taken place,” Frank countered. "And if you'll finally LISTEN to me, I think I can explain this in a way you'll understand. But Carrie... you've got to give me a chance here. At least one, please?”

Carrie stared. Frank was actually getting upset. So much so that Carrie was finally forced to admit to a certain curiosity as to why he was so adamant about what he was saying.

Add to that the fact that she would need his help with the time machine in future, as had been demonstrated by the fact that she hadn't been able to adjust it for her return...

"Okay, fine, throw your theory at me," Carrie allowed, throwing up her hands. "I'm sure I can point out the flaws.”

Frank sighed in relief. “Great.” He pushed himself away from the table. “Now, the best scenario I've come up with to illustrate the fixed nature of time is the grandfather paradox. Simply put, I go back in time and kill my grandfather before my father is conceived. So, who killed my grandfather?"

Carrie shrugged. "You just said you did it."

"But now my Dad hasn't been born so obviously I don't exist and hence couldn't have done it."

"Oh. Good point... um, someone else did it then. A time traveling stowaway."

"Assume no stowaways," Frank clarified. "If I’m the only time traveller, how could we explain it?"

"No other time traveler?" Carrie considered it. "Fine, then you shot the wrong person by mistake. Oh, or you were adopted without realizing it. Or perhaps it WAS your grandpa, but you were conceived by the milkman.”

“What? Er, no." Frank frowned.

Carrie got the impression that he was becoming troubled by her responses. She couldn’t think of why.

"See, the whole point is that it's an unresolvable paradox,” Frank continued. “There is no real answer. The only way out of it is to declare that I cannot kill my grandfather in the first place. From this, we extrapolate an unchangeable past as--"

“Stop right there," Carrie interrupted, unintentionally finding herself being pulled deeper into the conversation. "Frank, I just gave you a bunch of answers. You can’t ignore them to say it’s ‘unresolvable’."

“Carrie, my whole point was that I went back in time to kill my grandfather. Not someone else.”

“See, MY point is that after you fire your gun, things will change such that - if it's not possible for anyone else to have killed him - the person you killed is no longer in your family tree."

“But then, what, you’re saying he was my grandfather before, but now isn’t?”

“Right. You changed history. The fact that your genes are now different, with that guy being unrelated? Your own damn fault.”

Frank rubbed the side of his head, mulling that over. "This isn't working out like I'd hoped," he finally said.

"No kidding," Carrie retorted. Apparently she was on the path towards changing his thinking though, which was a good sign.

"Okay, give me a second here," Frank requested. "I think the trouble is that you're trying to latch onto the multiple time tracks theory, while there's better arguments for the principle of self-consistency."

Carrie peered. "Is that so?" she asked warily. "What's so wrong with this 'multiple time tracks' theory then?”

"It doesn't flow as well," Frank stated, starting to snap his fingers. “How can I put this... aha, wait, diagrams."

He went over to his chalkboard and started erasing some old formulas. "I think you mentioned 'Back to the Future' once... ever see the sequels?"

"Yes," Carrie admitted. "I don't know that they were as good, but I hit an especially boring weekend and the first one had piqued my curiosity about where they could go from there."

“Okay, then you might recognize this argument, it's connected to the second movie." Frank drew a straight horizontal line across the blackboard. “Imagine that this line represents time. Here's the present." He wrote a large P in the centre of the line. "This delimits the past and the future."

He wrote 'PAST' to the left and a large 'F' to the right.

"Now, by your theory, if I travel from this point in time..." (Frank indicated the P) "...to somewhere in the past..." (He moved to put an 'x' above the line in the past) "...and kill my grandfather, the timeline will be skewed into an alternate present."

Frank proceeded to draw another line from the 'x' traveling diagonally downwards towards the bottom of the blackboard. He eventually levelled this line off at the centre and wrote 'P-prime' over it. "Results in multiple time tracks. Follow?"

Carrie nodded slowly. "So far."

"Right then." Frank dropped the chalk and dusted his hands. "The problem is that the me who traveled back in time came from this original timeline," he stated.

Seemingly for emphasis, he pointed at the first 'P' he had drawn.

“Yet if I were to return from that Past to a Present, it would now be this alternate primed present,” he continued.

Now he indicated the second track below the first.

"In which I discover that there is now an ALTERNATE version of me with a different grandfather. Two of me is a nasty time paradox that we wouldn't get with my self-consistency theory."

Carrie stared at the drawing, then slowly shook her head.

“No. You misunderstood me. There’s no paradox if the timeline’s smart enough to fix things such that you don't double yourself up,” she pointed out. “Your alternate self could have had a reason to leave that timeline for the past too. Becoming you in the process. So when you return to the present, you simply pick up where that alternate life left off, as if there was no change.”

Frank looked back at the board himself. “You mean I’m now an alternate self who only thought he killed his grandfather?”

“You’re an alternate self who caused some change in the past, modifying your present. Exactly.”

A pained expression settled on Frank’s face. "Yeeeeees, I suppose," he yielded. "But that results in a lot more temporal details to take care of. That’s... chaotic, confusing and hard to sort out."

"Hence you prefer your less chaotic theory," Carrie said dryly.

"Well, yes. With self-consistency, we get what I was saying before. Any changes made were fated to happen anyway.”

Frank proceeded to erase part of his initially drawn line, the part lying to the right of the 'x' in the past. Then he erased the ‘prime’ next to his second P. “See? There is only ONE present. It's not an alternate. Any kinks that exist in the timeline have always been there, as we fulfil our individual destinies.”

Carrie frowned, shaking her head. That didn’t sit right, and not merely because it wouldn’t help bring back her mother. "Frank, the way you're making things look now... the future itself is already mapped out too. You're eliminating free will."

Frank scratched his head. "Well, yeah, kinda. That's the one little sticking point. But this IS the most sensible theory out of all the ones I've come across. Remember, I’ve had two years to look into this, Carrie.”

“Back up. Eliminating free will is not a sticking point,” Carrie insisted. “At least with my theory, we have a chance of restoring that original present, if we wanted to. Yeah?”

"But...” Frank rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, listen. Let’s approach this empirically instead. Consider what's been happening with our time incursions thus far. For example, that crystal swan of yours."

Frank pointed to the past ‘x’ again.

"Let's say that this is when it broke for you two years ago. From then on, we've been living the rest of this timeline."

Frank gestured at the skewed line on the board.

"Now, when we finally reached Thursday, you traveled back to break it. You didn't change anything. It had already happened; you were only fulfilling a destiny of sorts."

Carrie folded her arms back across her chest and stared at the blackboard for an extended period of time before speaking again. She wanted to make sure she could poke the right holes in this.

"I disagree,” she stated at last, pointing at the diagram herself. “It's just as likely that, as soon as the swan broke, my brain changed to remember this new past. Instead of the original timeline you erased, and however things might have originally taken place. Right? What’s wrong with that?”

"Well..." Frank began to fidget. “Nothing on the surface, I guess," he admitted. "But if that really is the case, then the time traveler themselves is not immune to the effects of changed time. Meaning after you change something, you'll remember only one timeline anyway. Beneath the surface, what's the difference?"

"The difference is that I could get my mother back - and remember growing up with her around,” Carrie fired back triumphantly. She had him there.

Frank gaped. He looked from the chalkboard to her and back again. “No, but... but no. Since you wouldn't remember making that change,” he objected.

He then started gesturing at the chalkboard, ignoring how Carrie was crossing her arms once more.

“See, what if, after making the alteration, you end up in a present you find even more unbearable?” Frank suggested. “You might then want to change things again - perhaps even creating whatever situation you had in the first place. Now you’re in an endless time loop. It’s chaos, Carrie. Seriously, is that danger worth it, simply to save your mom?”

At last, Frank turned back to Carrie.

Her glare was the only warning she gave him before her fist came flying at his face.

Chapter 20: Part 10b: Time Doubt

Summary:

Carrie and Frank resolve their differences, planning to keep things secret because there seems to be something mysterious about all of this. Including an apple, and a phone call.

"Sorry about that," Carrie mumbled.

"Yes. Well. I guess I was arguing without considering the implications," Frank responded, dabbing at his face with the ice filled handkerchief.

He'd just come back downstairs after spending fifteen minutes getting his nose to stop bleeding. At least nothing was broken. This time, he resolved to pay way more attention to Carrie, and not get too caught up in temporal theory.

"Damn right," Carrie fired back off the opening. "You not only suggested that I could be behind my mother's disappearance, but that having her around would be worse for me than how things are now. That's horrible, Frank.”

“I didn’t mean to do that,” he apologized. “I won’t say anything like that again.”

There was a brief pause, after which Frank saw her start to twirl some hair in her fingers.

"Though, ah, I do hope my overreaction won't affect your decision on whether to help me time travel? I... I’m realizing that I may have, um, impulse control issues where my mother is concerned.”

Of course. She still wanted his help. Frank prodded his nose experimentally. Truth be known? He still wanted to help her. He wondered what that said about his psyche.

Frank sighed. “Honestly? I have wanted to do more with this time travel stuff,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t have spent two years coin collecting if I didn’t. But Carrie, please tell me that you understand that there ARE issues to consider before going into the past? I mean, we’ve been stranded once already. We don't want that to happen again, do we?"

Carrie shuddered visibly. "True, we don't want that." She frowned. "All right. How about this. If YOU agree to keep an open mind about fixing things with my mother... I'LL agree to back off until we know more about what could be going on here. Since my theory implies that I might not remember waiting a few extra weeks anyway.”

"I guess that's reasonable," Frank consented, sinking into a chair and tossing the handkerchief aside. “Thank you. I’m glad we've got that of the way.” He looked over at the lab counter. “Which brings us to the question of the time machine itself.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Carrie look towards the device as well.

“I think,” he continued, “it's safe to assume that this technology comes from the future. Which either means it was sent back here for some reason, or... well, or there's a person from the future running around in our present looking for their time machine.”

“Oh, damn. You think they might come after us to get it?”

“I don’t know. I never saw anyone suspicious lurking around the ravine this last week, when it supposedly turned up. I don't suppose you ever ran across anyone other than me while down in there, did you, Carrie?"

He looked back her way. She seemed to have become lost in thought.

Frank cleared his throat. "Carrie?"

"What? Oh, sorry." The blonde shook her head. "You reminded me of something from when we were trapped in the woods. That present day nickel I used in the machine? It was given to me by a weird man. And the guy seemed to know that it was exactly what we’d need, like he knew why we were stranded out there."

That took a moment to sink in. Then Frank sat bolt upright in his chair. "What? Did this person mention the time machine?"

Carrie shook her head. "Not as such. Not directly. All he said was..." She paused, brow furrowing. "He gave me the nickel, then said, 'It's yours now. Do what you will with it. Just guard it. Don't let anyone take it away from you.'"

"Don't let anyone take the nickel away from you?" Frank wondered.

"The guy might not have had all his marbles," Carrie admitted. "The two he was with didn't seem to think highly of him... though again, they didn't seem to know him either. Maybe this ‘Shady’ guy thought they'd take the money away from me?"

Frank frowned. "Guard it. Don't let anyone take it away from you," he repeated. He found his eyes being drawn back towards the table. “Could your ‘Shady’ have been referring to the time machine itself?"

Carrie followed Frank's gaze to the enigmatic black box. “Don't know.” She snorted. “But hey, I’m not someone who’ll lock a time machine up somewhere safe and forget about it. If Shady wanted a person to 'guard' the thing, no way was I tops on his list. Seriously.”

Frank rubbed his forehead. "We’re also speaking of events that happened over two years ago. Yet you only found the machine this past week. The only way this makes sense is if he knew back then that he'd be leaving the device somewhere for you to find in the future."

“Except if Shady wanted me to have it two years ago, why not give it to me then?” Carrie pointed out, apparently becoming irritated.

The two teenagers stared at each other in puzzlement.

"I'm getting the impression that there's something bigger than we realize going on here," Frank remarked.

“I hate to say it, but you could be right," Carrie admitted uneasily. "Frank, have you told anyone else about the time machine yet?"

“No. I figured no one would believe me until the proof turned up. Or that if they did believe me, that they would want to get involved. I didn’t want to deal with that."

Carrie nodded. "Then let's keep it a secret between us. At least for now."

Frank nodded. "I'll go along with that."

"Good." There was a moment of silence. "Okay, I'll leave it with you for testing. Except before that, I gotta try one last thing."

"What's that?"

"Keep myself from traveling back to Friday."

Frank blinked, standing back up. "Pardon?"

Carrie passed a hand in front of her eyes. "Frank, on Friday I got so caught up in my need for changing things that I yanked down on the school fire alarm and messed with your chemistry lab. Even though no one was hurt, that was WAY out of line. Even for me. I... I have to try to undo it. At least once. Or I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

Sincere, vulnerable Carrie was back again. Only the lingering pain in Frank’s nose reminded him that she still had a hair trigger temper.

Carrie took in a deep breath. “I reason, the easiest fix here is to keep myself from going back in time this morning. After all, if you'd been a little more convincing, we might not be in this situation at all.”

Frank ignored her attempt to shift blame. Instead, he considered a couple of different replies, based on what he already knew from that morning. He settled for saying, "Carrie, you must realize that you won't succeed."

"I admit that after our talk, it’s a bit of a moot point, in that if works, we may not know that it did. But damn it, I still have to try. I mean, the machine is set for today, I still have one current coin with me... all I can hope is that I’ll randomly travel back to a lot earlier in the morning.” She half smiled. “Hey, maybe it will erase me hitting you. Win-win?”

"Carrie," Frank began again, before stopping himself. Would he invoke a time paradox by telling her that he'd already witnessed her failure? "Be careful," he concluded.

Carrie nodded. "Actually, I haven't ended up anywhere weird when traveling by myself. I’ve been near the ravine out back of my house every single time.”

Carrie dropped her coin into the time machine.

“Though on the off chance something loopy happens, I'll take your apple to eat, okay?" She grabbed the piece of fruit off the lab table.

"Talk to you later then?" Frank remarked.

"No, hopefully earlier," Carrie retorted with a chuckle. One pull of the lever later, and with a flash of light, she'd vanished yet again.

Frank shook his head, then went to get the hidden time machine - the one left behind when Carrie had arrived from the trip for which she’d only now departed.

Some aspects of this time travel stuff really would take some getting used to... but hopefully there would be some answers in the device. He now had all evening with which to examine it.

For instance, it was curious that all of Carrie's solo time jumps were taking place in town. That had to be more than coincidence. Could it have been his presence that caused the greater distances? In fact, Carrie had said she'd always been ending up near her house... except for that last trip.

She had said she’d been a block away from his place.

So, she had departed from his house twice today, yet it had led to two different arrival points. Had there been any difference between the two trips? He'd noticed both had been with quarters, so it wasn't that. Something she was carrying, perhaps? No difference came to mind there either, except for that apple.

Frank leaned against the table. Wait. The apple.

Where exactly had it come from? He didn't keep fruit down here. No, Carrie had dropped it off in the morning, after time traveling, then picked it up before leaving on that very same trip. ... What?

She must have switched it for another apple somewhere outside the house in between. MUST have. The alternative was spontaneous creation from thin air.

Yet by Carrie's own perspective, she’d had only minutes between when she picked up the apple, sprinted back here, and dropped it off.

But then... what was its origin?

On second thought, maybe he could use a break before examining the machine. His head was starting to hurt.

***

Frank was still puzzling over the problem some time later when the home phone rang. Being closest to a receiver, he picked up. "Hello?"

A male-sounding, yet strangely flat voice spoke to him. "Frank home?" it inquired.

"Speaking. Who is this?"

There was a pause before the emotionless response. "Julie suspects."

Frank froze. "Pardon?"

Another pause. "Julie suspects. About your time machine."

Frank gripped the phone harder. "Who is this? Carrie, is that you? This isn’t funny.”

Again a pause, until at last the monotone male voice concluded, "Take precautions. Watch your back."

"But who are you? What precautions? What's going on?" Frank demanded.

The caller had already hung up.

Chapter 21: Part 11a: Phil Doubt

Summary:

Phil Clarke, seemingly Julie's only confidant, reflects on her, his own past and his older sister. Even as Julie seems to have come up with something new in the present.

Phil Clarke swirled the liquid in his cup before taking another sip. It was times like this that he enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate in the local cafe after school.

Times when he wasn’t sure what to do about Julie LaMille.

It seemed like her plans were taking a more severe turn in their Grade Eleven school year. His first hint of these shifting tides had been after learning more precisely how Julie had planned on getting Frank into trouble during chemistry class, nearly a week ago now.

Ever since that plan had failed, Julie had been obsessing over both Carrie's connections with Frank, and Carrie's whereabouts in general. Even going so far as to monitor Frank’s house last weekend.

Clarke wasn't entirely sure why this was happening, or what role he might find himself in as circumstances played themselves out, but he suspected not a lot of good would come of it in the long run.

“Want to talk about it?”

Clarke looked up at Theresa. The redheaded waitress had a habit of acting as a sounding board for the cafe’s customers when business was slow.

While he had spoken with the twenty-something woman on occasion, it had been about family, or school issues. Never Julie.

“Not today, thanks.”

Theresa nodded, leaving the receipt at his table. “No rush, whenever you’re ready.” She moved off.

Clarke was left fingering the piece of paper. Luci's words from outside Frank’s house last Sunday came to mind then: 'Julie's just using you. You should never feel obligated to do things for her.'

Clarke smiled and shook his head. Luci could be pretty blunt. She reminded Clarke a little of his older sister that way.

Of course, Luci was a lot younger. She was the youngest person in Grade Eleven by a factor of two years. Still, there were some parallels... enough for Clarke to begin wondering whether Mary would have a similar reaction to his current "relationship" with Julie.

After all, he'd never gone into detail about him and Julie during his sister’s occasional trips back home.

Mary had her own life now, off in third year University. She didn't even know Julie, or any of the people in town. She had already graduated high school by the time their family moved here, a little over two years ago. Just in time to get Clarke into the local public high school before classes started.

Actually, Clarke realized, this was verging on the longest amount of time he'd ever spent in one place; it was nice that Dad had finally found stable work.

Clarke finished off his hot chocolate. He decided Mary might not approve of how things were, but she would understand.

There was something about Julie. Some part of her Clarke couldn't turn his back on. Julie needed someone who could look beyond her actions, at who she really was. Someone who could keep her from going too far off the deep end.

Carrie Waterson, despite being Julie’s best friend, couldn’t do that. Not given that blonde cheerleader’s more superficial way of looking at people.

Granted, Clarke knew he knew he was no deep thinker either, but he felt like the only one wondering as to Julie's inner motivations. Something she remained very tight-lipped about - along with her past.

But this too, Clarke understood... one's childhood might not be filled with the happiest of moments.

***

"Where are you going?"

"Goin' out."

Mary paused before crouching down next to him.

Despite the four year difference in their ages, the two blond siblings had always enough of a rapport that he didn’t try to simply push past her.

"You're carrying a lot of stuff with you," she pointed out. "Planning on being gone for a long time?"

Phil Clarke looked away, unable to meet his sister’s gaze. "Don't know."

Mary moved to where she could look him in the eye again. "Well, the moving vans are coming tomorrow. You'll be back in time for the big trip, right?"

Phil simply shrugged and shifted his gaze to the ground.

Mary let out a gentle sigh. "Phil, running away is not the answer," she said definitively.

"Who says I'm runnin' away?" he fired back defensively, at last turning back towards Mary's face.

"I do. Because you're acting very similarly to the way I did when I was your age," his sister replied matter-of-factly.

After a moment, Phil looked down at the floor, scuffing his shoes. "Well... well, I don't wanna leave. I was just startin' to make friends. Just gettin' used to livin' here. I don't wanna move again. It's not fair."

"No," Mary admitted, rising back to her full height and adjusting the straps of her dress. "No, it's not fair. But you'll still be able to write letters. And just think of the new town we're going to. There will be all new sights, you'll make new friends..."

"You sound like Mom," Phil interjected bitterly.

Mary blinked in surprise before making a rather annoyed face. "Oh, hell. I do, don't I. And that claptrap never worked on me either."

She pursed her lips. "All right, here's the honest truth then. Phil, life sucks. With no one hiring Dad on a permanent basis, he has to keep moving around to wherever he can get work. But - and this is important, so listen up - through all of the changes, you've got a family who loves you. We all care about you very much and would be very sad if we lost you. So you have to be strong. You can be strong, right?"

"Dunno," Phil said sullenly, still looking at the floor.

Mary reached out to tilt her brother's chin back up. "I think you can be. And Mom, Dad, me - we're all going to be around to help each other through this." She smiled. "Besides, if you run off, who am I going to have around to torment?"

Phil hmphed. "'S your problem," he retorted, albeit in a more mollified tone.

"True. How about this, if you put your things away and help me pack up the rest of the boxes, I won't bug you all next week, okay?"

Phil paused to consider that. "Two weeks," he insisted.

Mary laughed. "You drive a hard bargain. All right, two weeks. But no running off anymore, okay?"

"'K," Phil agreed.

"Now, hurry up and get your things back to where they're supposed to be before mom finds out," Mary said, aiming a kick in his direction. Phil hurried back up to his bedroom.

***

"Oh, Philip? You had a phone call."

Clarke paused in the process of hanging his jacket up in the closet. Maybe he shouldn't have spent quite so much time at the cafe. "Who from?"

"Julie," his mother answered, emerging from the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel. "She said she had something to show you, if you were available."

If she’d only called the house, she probably didn’t think it was important. All the more reason he should know. Clarke quickly shrugged his jacket back on. "Gotcha. I'll be at her place."

“You shouldn’t be at her beck and call," Mrs. Clarke protested. “That’s not how a relationship works.”

"Mom, we’re not dating. And I’m going of my own free will," Clarke insisted. "Nothing wrong with helping people out, is there?"

His mother held up her hands. "No, no, I was just saying, that's all. But remember, it’s Thursday, a school night. And dinner will be in about an hour, around when your father gets home. Will you be back by then?"

"I'll call if not," Clarke assured.

"Please do," his mother said with a smile. “Sometimes I worry."

Clarke turned and headed back out of the house, reflecting briefly on what his mother had said.

He wasn't really at anyone’s beck and call, was he? I mean, it's not like he jumped whenever someone snapped their fingers. He made sure to still take care of himself.

It was simply that doing something nice for someone beat out the alternatives. He knew that from experience too.

***

"Phil?" The voice was accompanied by a gentle knock at the door. "Are you busy?"

"Yes," Phil shouted back. "Go away."

"Too bad, I'm coming in." The door opened gradually, then Mary's head peered around the corner. She was immediately pinged between the eyes by a nerf ball.

"You spoiled my shot," Phil accused.

Mary spared a brief glance in the direction of the basketball hoop set up on the back of Phil's bedroom door. More than a couple inches away from her. "Oh, I think you knew exactly where that shot was headed," she accused. "Why are you still playing with that thing anyway?"

"It's something to do," Phil stated, throwing himself back on his bed. "You barge in here for a reason?"

"Yes. Mom said you got into trouble at your middle school today."

Phil turned so that he was facing away from the door. "So what if I did?"

He heard Mary lean against the doorframe. "We've been living in the area for less than a month now and this is the third time that's happened. It's not like you, Phil. You're usually a pretty outgoing person. When we get to a new place, you tend to make new friends pretty easily. But recently, you've been spending a lot of time alone. What's wrong?"

"Why does it matter to you?"

"It matters."

The two words were spoken so suddenly and with such intensity that Phil felt momentarily taken aback. As he turned to face his sister again he wondered again where she had obtained her authoritative attitude from; certainly a quality their parents didn't have in abundance.

After a pause, Phil finally shrugged, grabbing a pillow to hold onto. "Ah, this school I've ended up in has this 'alliance' is all," he grumbled, sitting up. "A group of kids who don't like me and keep causing me problems."

"Really," Mary replied slowly.

Phil nodded. "Can't go to teachers or anyone, cuz then the kids'll just try to give it to me worse," he explained. "And other kids are starting to shun me cuz they don't want to get on the bad side of the alliance. I can't even seem to get on the GOOD side of these alliance guys, cuz they won't tell me what their problem is with me. This is just a real screwed up school, Mary. I hope dad moves again soon."

"You know, you're probably not helping your own case," his sister pointed out. "This habit you've picked up of telling everyone to call you by your last name isn't the best way to form lasting friendships."

Phil shrugged. "We always leave towns before any 'lasting friendships' form anyway," he groused. "Besides, it's more than that here. If you ask me, everyone at this school is just a jerk."

"Stop that," Mary demanded, striding into the room and leaning against Phil’s bed.

"Stop what?" Phil asked, blinking up at her in surprise.

"Putting people down," Mary stated. "The Phil I grew up with didn't do that. He was someone who always managed to discover a little good in everything and everybody, and while he didn't have the chance to make many lifelong friends, he never made enemies. In fact, the way he could consistently leave a favourable impression on people was a quality I envied. So, I don't want to see that Phil get replaced by someone who constantly whines and bitches about how terrible things are. News flash, bro... you keep that up and it's going to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

"You don't understand,” Phil objected. "These alliance guys won't accept me. There's nothing I can do about it.”

"Never say never," Mary countered. She pushed herself back up. "Come on now, I'm sure there's something we can come up with if we put our heads together. For example, one person in this alliance is probably the ringleader. Any idea who?"

"Nope," said Phil sullenly. "What, should I find out who it is and beat 'em up sometime?"

"No," Mary replied. "Because that's not your style. But I'll tell you one thing you could try doing with this person."

Chapter 22: Part 11b: Phil Doubt

Summary:

Phil Clarke continues to think about an incident when he was younger, until he arrives at Julie's mansion. She is there waiting for him.

"Grocery shopping?"

"No," Clarke refuted. “Passing by on my way to Julie's."

"Ah. I see," Frank replied uncertainly.

Clarke had bumped into his classmate while passing in front of one of the local minimarkets, prompting Frank's inquiry. Clarke got the impression Frank had more to say.

"Er, speaking of Julie," Frank continued, "I've noticed that she's been looking quite preoccupied with something this past week."

“She’s not acting so different now from how she usually does,” Clarke countered.

"Yeeeeees, perhaps," Frank admitted hesitantly.

Confirming for Clarke that Frank was among the people who never thought too much about Julie until things got personal.

“Except, well... Clarke, you probably know Julie better than anyone else," Frank said. "So it occurred to me the other day that, should I run into you, I should take the opportunity to inquire about her. Okay, no, I mean about whether there's anything in particular that is going on right now with her. In the form of, say, unexpected interests. That is, things interesting her more than normal, which could be anything in general, or even more specifically something that could somehow relate to a person, such as someone who is, er, say, me."

Clarke stared at Frank for a long moment. Despite being a school genius, the guy wasn’t so good at casual inquiries. Clarke got the gist of what he was saying though.

"Whatever Julie's activities are, they're not for me to say right now," Clarke insisted. Deflection was usually his best bet. Julie couldn’t get upset with him that way.

"Ah. Yes, well... maybe I wasn't being very clear there," Frank apologized. "Basically, I meant that there's no reason for Julie to concern herself with me. Okay?”

"If you say so," Clarke remarked impassively. In fact, he really didn't see the need for any concern when it came to Frank himself. It was more Frank’s new ties with Carrie that Julie was obsessing over.

"Right," Frank said uncomfortably. "Well then. I guess I'll see you around."

"Probably," Clarke concluded.

At last, Frank moved off in the direction of his place, allowing Clarke to continue on to Julie's.

At this point, Clarke hoped that whatever Julie was planning, whether it related to Frank or not, it wouldn't cloud her judgment too much. It was never good when Julie - or anyone, for that matter - stopped listening to reason.

***

"Word has it you've been asking for a little one-on-one chat."

Phil turned back towards the school. Lance was standing there now, an unpleasant expression on his face. He had to be the one. Phil nervously cleared his throat. "Maybe I have," he admitted.

"'Maybe I have'," Lance mimicked mockingly. "Don't play dumb with me, Clarke. You told Harry you wanted to talk to the guy behind our little alliance, so here I am. Now, surely you don't have any complaints with how I'm running things, do you?"

Phil cleared his throat again. "Actually, I... I just wanted to ask... would you like me to give you some basketball pointers?" he said, all in a rush.

Lance blinked. "Huh?" he replied, caught off guard.

"Basketball. Both of us are on the team and you're a really great player," Phil continued, slowly gaining confidence. "But sometimes you telegraph when you're going to--"

"Are you trying to be FUNNY?" Lance cut in, reaching out to shove Phil by the shoulders.

Phil stumbled. "F-Funny?" he repeated in confusion.

Lance shoved again and Phil went down onto the pavement. "I'm not laughing." Lance said.

Phil blinked up at his aggressor. "I only wanted to see if there was some agreement we could reach... some way we could help each other out," he stated, forcing down any urge to retaliate. As Mary had advised him, physical violence would solve nothing here. It wasn’t his area of strength.

"Yeah? You've helped enough already,” Lance fired back. He bent down next to Phil's prone form, jabbing out a finger. "Now listen up, wise guy. Everyone at this school knows that I was the star of the basketball team until you showed up. Waltzing in here, signing up for the team tryouts on the last day, constantly upstaging me in practice... just who the hell do you think you are?"

Phil stared up at Lance. "Someone who wants to be your friend?"

Lance stared back in amazement. "Are you freakin' nuts?"

"No, listen," Phil pressed on. "I'm sure we can come to some kind of understanding. I meant what I said about giving you basketball tips. To keep you from telegraphing your shots. I bet we could even become an unbeatable pair if we tried. Plus, should my dad move again, as he probably will, I'm gone and you end up better off from the deal because of the stuff you've learned. I mean, if you'd prefer, I could try to help you in science... but it's not my strongest subject."

Lance stood, sizing Phil up. "You truly believe everything you're saying, don't you," he marveled at last.

"Yes," Phil answered simply.

There was another brief pause. "Saying that took guts, Clarke," Lance conceded. "I like guts. Perhaps you even make a bit of sense." Lance rubbed his chin. "Okay. I’m not about to get buddy-buddy with you, but how about this. You seriously help me out on the court and STOP showing me up... and maybe I’ll see about cutting you a bit more slack around here."

"Sounds good," Phil agreed with a smile. "I never meant to show you up anyway." He scrambled to his feet again, then offered his hand to Lance. Lance eyed it warily, before finally reaching out to grasp it and shake. He then shook his head.

“Again, no saying we’re friends,” Lance cautioned. “In fact, let me offer up some words of free advice. Pay more attention. Be careful who you cross in the future. Not everyone with the power to pull strings around you is likely to be as... forgiving as me."

"Gotcha," Phil assured, admittedly a bit confused as to what Lance was getting at.

'After all, using Mary's advice, I can't go wrong,' Phil thought to himself. 'I just need to be myself and work at helping people out. If I do that, who in the future could possibly create trouble for me?'

***

"Miss LaMille requests you join her downstairs," Jeeves stated archly. "She is currently in her... 'play room'."

Clarke nodded to the LaMille family butler and left the waiting area to go and find Julie.

The mansion she lived in was actually not as large as it appeared from outside; some of the size was illusionary owing to its location on a hill, and the comparison made with nearby houses. It had originally been designed and built by an eccentric inventor who’d lived in the town some years ago, though he’d disappeared shortly after the LaMilles had bought the property.

Of course, the place was still large enough to get turned around in if you weren't careful, or you didn't know your route. Fortunately, Clarke was quite familiar with the route to Julie’s favourite room by now.

Clarke knocked. “Come in, Phil," Julie called out.

He entered as the brunette shut the drawer of the filing cabinet next to her. One of three such cabinets in the room.

She walked past the maps of both the school and the town which she had pinned up on the wall, then leaned onto the table which housed numerous little trinkets and electronic gadgets, firing a grin in Clarke's direction.

"Glad you could make it after all,” she said. “Guess what I've managed to get my hands on to help me deal with Carrie."

Chapter 23: Part 12a: The Clarke Side

Summary:

Clarke reflects more directly on his history with Julie, even as she discovers something very strange about her new tracking device.

Clarke moved closer to Julie, musing on the fact that he held the distinction of being the only person - aside from Julie herself - to have been allowed inside this so-called “play room”.

Even the mansion staff, Jeeves and Mimi, weren’t allowed in. Jeeves had presumably knocked on the door to announce Clarke’s arrival upstairs.

Clarke had considered being allowed in as a victory of sorts at the time, though upon seeing the sheer volume of information Julie "played" with in here, it had been enough to make Clarke feel uneasy as well. At the time.

He had to admit, almost six months later, he was getting used to it.

"I couldn't possibly guess, Jewels. What've you got?" Clarke inquired obligingly off her expectant expression.

After all, the room’s three filing cabinets contained information on what had to amount to at least half the students at school, plus information on annual school activities. The files dated from before Julie’s actual arrival, up until the middle of next year; Julie could well give the principal a run for his money in terms of bookkeeping.

She had told Clarke that she preferred having the paper copies, as opposed to making everything electronic. Something about things being both more tangible and more secure this way - though there was a computer on the table as well.

Since becoming student council secretary, Julie had even started keeping copies of all their meeting minutes down here. And any one of these things could have given Julie an angle towards “dealing” with Carrie.

Guessing was out of the question.

"This,” Julie declared, picking up a tiny something from the central table, holding it aloft. "Retrieved through my dad's company. A miniature homing device, easy to track, difficult to see, and while it’s not quite as accurate as a GPS, it’s got enough power to run in hibernation mode for something like sixty years.”

"You're going to track someone for sixty years?" Clarke said in surprise. The link eluded him.

The brunette chuckled. "No," she explained patiently. "But the guarantee says it's good for that long, and I would assume they're not lying. At any rate, what I AM planning on doing is figuring out exactly where Carrie's been keeping herself, given her recent habit of turning up in the oddest places. Seemingly in duplicate." She half-smiled. "Pardon my enthusiasm. I couldn't resist showing this to someone else."

"I thought Carrie had explained herself though,” Clarke said. "Or about her visits to Frank at least."

"Yeah, math help. Doesn't explain why she must have left his place by sneaking through his backyard last Sunday," Julie noted. "After all, according to you, she showed up at Frank's around two. Yet was back home again when I called at five. And in the interim, no one else so much as stood on Frank's driveway."

"Except Luci," Clarke reminded her.

"Yes," admitted Julie, her tone showing some irritation. "Except Luci. But you said she didn't actually make it as far as the front door, and given how hard that girl's loyalties are to figure out, I’m going to invoke Occam’s Razor and say her presence was a broken study arrangement."

Clarke shrugged. "Whatever, I was just saying..."

"Yes, yes, she was there, thank you for going and keeping an eye on things for me,” Julie acknowledged. "My point is, Carrie has been acting weird, and holding back from me ever since missing my party. By tracking her movements, it will be easier for me to catch her in a lie. Which is the best way to obtain the truth.”

"But what if she IS being truthful?" Clarke offered. "What if there is a reasonable explanation for everything? Aren't your measures getting a little extreme?"

"You have a better idea?" Julie challenged.

"Talk to her?"

"I have. Yet I can't say anything directly, because if she IS lying, the questions will tip her off," Julie rebuffed. "And Carrie is terribly good at thinking on the fly when she wants to – that’s why I much preferred when she was not thinking. The real problem here is that none of my future plans can go anywhere so long as we're in this little stalemate. I need to know where Carrie’s loyalties lie, and I need to know as soon as possible."

One hand clenched into a fist.

“If it turns out that she is conspiring against me, she must not be allowed to get away with it. I cannot let her destroy what I have now, not after I've worked so hard to get this far.” She brought her fist crashing down onto the table. “Julie LaMille will NOT be made a fool of twice,” she finished loudly.

"Twice?"

Julie paused, and Clarke could swear he saw a hint of colour creeping into her cheeks. "Never mind," she mumbled, quickly turning away and grabbing some papers to hide her face. “Something from before I moved here. Just... go get Jeeves to pour us some juice? I need to finish inputting local landmark data into the receiver device."

Clarke paused, but decided any attempt to follow up on Julie's comment right now would only earn him a harsh rebuke. "Sure Jewels, whatever you say," he assured her, departing the room to head back upstairs.

Sometimes, he reflected, trying to figure out the mystery that was Julie LaMille was not unlike trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle... without the benefit of a picture. Or even all of the pieces.

Though of course, the mystery had been one of the reasons Clarke had approached her in the first place.

***

"Julie? Hey, Julie."

The brunette turned to regard him, her eyes narrowing. "Yes?"

Clarke caught up to her. “Uhm, hi. I'm Clarke," he continued by way of introduction.

"I know that," Julie responded. "I've seen you in homeroom. Meaning I also know that Clarke is not even your first name, but your last name. What I do not know is why you are chasing me down in the hallway, waving your arm like a maniac."

"Then I'll tell you," Clarke continued, only momentarily taken aback. "See, I've been trying to get a handle on this new school for the past two weeks, learn who's who, what's what... kind of a standard thing with me I guess, though this is the first time I've done it with a high school..."

"Please skip to the point."

"Uh, right," Clarke said, forging on undaunted. “So, I learned that you only recently started attending school in this town too. I figure, maybe it’s the same thing for you as it is with me? Neither of us knows anyone around here all that well, so maybe there’s some way us two Grade Nines can help each other out, swap stories or..."

"Why?" demanded Julie. And despite being taller than the brunette, Clarke now felt like she had him under a microscope.

"Uh, well, you know, I just thought that hey, I've met some people and, ah, maybe you've met some people, so between us we might, I dunno, get to know more people?" Clarke said, now fumbling for words. “I don’t know much about you but we are both in the same boat... right? Can’t we help each other out?"

Was this really such a good idea after all? He had thought that maybe Julie was feeling the way he’d felt, that time back in middle school, when that basketball misunderstanding with Lance had caused people to shun him. That maybe, Julie had wanted someone else to make the first move here. But now...

"I see," she said. Julie concluded her scrutiny of Clarke and started to tap her foot on the ground. "Perhaps we can," she relented, her tone shifting. "For one thing, you learned I'm new to the area. Do you know what else people are saying about me?”

Clarke shrugged. “Not much,” he admitted. "Mostly people talk about how you keep to yourself. They wonder why someone from a rich family is even here in a public school, that sort of thing. Tori even thought you might’ve been thrown out of some private school overseas."

"Tori Veniti said that?" Julie said, pouncing on the name.

"Uh, yeah," Clarke confirmed. "But I figure, whether that's true or not, it's in the past. This is the present and it's important to make new friends when coming to a new place. Right?" He smiled.

"Indeed," Julie said slowly. A pause. "Clarke, you make some interesting points. Perhaps we could meet up tomorrow at lunch to talk some more?"

"Sure, sounds good,” Clarke agreed. "See you then?"

"Indeed," Julie repeated. She regarded him silently for another moment before spinning on her heel and walking away.

***

A cry of "That should do it,” greeted Clarke as he re-entered the room in Julie's basement.

“Got it working?” Clarke inquired, setting down the tray containing two glasses of orange juice. He proceeded to pick up one of them and take a sip, as Julie looked up from the thing she had in her hands.

"Oh, yes," she stated with a smile. "I've just input key town locations into the system, using Carrie's house as a reference point. Now all I need to do is attach the transmitter to her, and I'll be able to locate our resident head cheerleader any time I want to."

“Along with how many of her there are?"

"Well, no," Julie admitted. "There is only one transmitting device. But if my records show her in one location when she says she was elsewhere, or I register her someplace while she is seen somewhere else, Carrie will have a lot of explaining to do."

Clarke gulped down more juice. "Seems as well thought out as all your plans," he congratulated.

"In fact," Julie continued with a hint of pride. "I've even determined the best object upon which to attach the tracker... Carrie's hairband. She's always wearing one, and yet never looks at it very closely. Admittedly, she owns a few, but she wears that same blue one over ninety percent of the time, which I'm hoping is enough for my purposes."

"And I’m guessing you've worked out how to attach it as well?"

Julie swept a few strands of her curly hair back off her shoulder. "Naturally. She has a dinner date with Bill after tomorrow’s football game, and will thus be showering at the school after cheerleading. Since she does not wear her hairband in the shower, this provides the perfect opportunity. Even if she stumbles upon the device later, there won't be anything linking it to me. In the meantime, all I have to do is flip this switch..." Julie paused to do just that. "...and I'll know exactly where she is by looking at this receiver screen."

Clarke moved to take a look at the screen in question. “Does a flashing light indicate where that transmitting thing is?" he wondered.

Julie nodded, pursing her lips as they both examined the display.

“And you said there's only one of these transmitter things? Which is in this room?”

Julie nodded again.

Clarke cleared his throat. "So why are there three lights pulsing on your screen right now?" he finished.

"I don't know," Julie growled in a tone so harsh Clarke instinctively jumped away from her. "But I'm sure as hell going to find out," the brunette concluded, running for the door. "Come on, let’s go.”

"Wait,” Clarke called out. “Don’t forget your juice. Also, if this is going to take much longer, I need to give my mother a call to tell her I’ll be late for dinner.”

Chapter 24: Part 12b: The Clarke Side

Summary:

The relationship between Clarke and Julie (Phil and Jewels) is clarified, even as Julie makes a rather pivotal discovery.

Clarke had never been able to identify when his feelings for Julie had expanded beyond the scope of a simple friendship. It was merely something that had happened.

He supposed part of it was that, throughout Grade Nine, Julie had kept herself at such a distance from most people that, in a weird way, Clarke couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

Oh, sure, she got to know people, and after the initial period of adjustment to the school, Julie had gained steadily in both popularity and the amount of respect shown to her.

But even Carrie had never struck Clarke as being a true friend for Julie.

He’d commented on it to others, but of the people he had spoken to about Julie's detachment, many didn't believe him, and of those that did, many didn't care, and of those that cared, many were resentful of Julie's growing notoriety anyway. Then it all became a moot point, for once Julie heard that he was saying such things, she had demanded that he stop immediately.

Some of Julie's problems, Clarke reasoned, might be due to a lack of family ties. Her parents were sometimes – in fact, often – conspicuous in terms of their absence from the town. It also hadn't taken long for Clarke to discover that Julie spent an inordinate amount of the time she had away from school by herself, making personal plans.

Which almost never made her happy. Not really.

It was almost like she was simply doing things out of a lack of anything else to do - or maybe to prove to herself that she could? Which was really a shame in Clarke's mind, and had ultimately been the main motivation for his visit to her that fateful fall day last year...

***

"What's up, Clarke?" Julie asked upon walking into her sitting room. She crossed her arms. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Surprise visit," Clarke indicated with a smile. He produced a box which he had been holding behind his back. "For you."

Julie's brow furrowed as she approached. "What's inside?"

"Open and see."

Julie retrieved the box and did as Clarke had suggested. Her eyes opened wide. "Chocolate eclairs,” she said in surprise. She looked back up at her guest. "Why?"

"I know you like them and it seems to me like you could use cheering up," Clarke stated.

"What do you mean by that?" Julie demanded. "Nothing bad is happening to me. On the contrary, I practically guaranteed myself a seat on the student council this week.”

"But does that make you happy?" Clarke pressed.

"Happy?"

Clarke sighed. "Julie, ever since our return to school for Grade Ten, you've been spending even MORE of your time all alone. You haven't been seeing Carrie as much, and you've been seeing me even less. Is something bothering you?"

Julie made a dismissive gesture. "Why does it matter to you?”

"It matters."

Clarke wasn't even sure where those words had come from, but the intensity behind his tone surprised even him. Julie's eyebrows rose in response and it was a couple of seconds before she spoke. "It is no business of yours how I run my affairs," she retaliated.

"I'm not concerned about your affairs, I'm concerned about YOU," Clarke insisted.

"I'm just fine," Julie snapped. “Everything is going according to plan. Now Clarke, you were very useful in providing me with information last year, but seeing as we're both a little older and wiser now, I believe it's in both of our best interests for you stop spending so much time around me. In fact, you should leave. Now."

There was momentary silence. "If that is how you truly feel," Clarke said. Julie turned to leave the room. "But I will only leave if you tell me that doing so will make you happy."

Julie stopped in her tracks. "Haven't you figured it out?" she said in annoyance. "Happiness doesn't enter into this."

"It does for me."

"Why?" Julie demanded again. "Why do you give a damn??”

"Because," Clarke forced out. "I care about you, Jewels."

Julie spun back to face him. He was half expecting her to be absolutely exasperated at this point, so the look of complete shock and confusion was oddly comforting. "Jules...?" she vocalized after a second.

Clarke smiled weakly. "Jewels... I mean, it sort of sounds like your name, seems to jibe with all the money you have around here, plus, I don't know, makes me think of a diamond in the rough, kinda." He cleared his throat. "Just sort of slipped out, really. Sorry."

"Don't be," Julie replied, her tone soft. "It's... I’ve never had anyone..." She froze. “Is this part of a scam?" she asked, sizing Clarke up. "Has someone put you up to this?"

"No.”

"No? How can I be sure of that?" Julie demanded, pointing her finger. Her arm shook. "Do you have any proof?"

"Julie... Jewels... you know me fairly well by now," Clarke said as sincerely as he could. "Do you honestly believe that I would say these things because someone told me to do it?"

Julie began to chew on her lower lip. "I'm not sure what to think," she mumbled uncomfortably. Her lips finally parted. "Clarke..."

"Phil. Please, I want you to call me Phil," Clarke interrupted.

Julie blinked but otherwise seemed unmoved. "Phil," she attempted again. "I'd like to think your intentions are honourable. But past incidents have caused me to become naturally... wary. I'm... I'm going to need some time to think through the repercussions of... this.”

Clarke nodded. "Anything I can do to help? Sometimes it's good to talk things out with a close friend."

Julie stared at him for another long moment. “No. You've helped enough already," she concluded. Not sharply, he was pleased to hear, but gently. “You really should leave now. Feeling free to come back whenever you like," she hastily added.

Clarke nodded. "Count on that," he remarked. He took a couple of steps towards the doorway.

"Oh, and Cl-- Phil?" Julie stated. He turned back to see Julie's gaze upon the box she was still holding.

"Jewels?" he responded.

Julie cleared her throat uncertainly before looking back up. "Thanks. That is, for the eclairs," she quickly quantified.

Clarke watched as the severe colouring seen all too often in Julie's features became overshadowed by the genuine, if hesitant, smile upon her face.

'She needs to smile like that more often,' he realized. 'I need to get her to smile like that more often.'

***

Julie grinned triumphantly. "We're almost there," she declared. "Left at the next corner, Jeeves." The butler, who doubled as chauffeur, simply sighed and did as requested.

"We're heading for the edge of town," Clarke remarked. "Why would Carrie come all the way out here?"

“I can't say for sure whether this is Carrie we're tracking," Julie reminded. "All this thing has picked up is some device or devices which transmit on the same frequency. Ignoring the one I still have, there was the one somewhere in the ravine near Carrie's, which stopped transmitting while you were making that phone call. Then there's this one, which is out... wherever we're going."

"Do you know why the ravine signal stopped sending?” Clarke asked.

"No. I'll work it out in due course," Julie muttered through clenched teeth. "Jeeves, stop here. We're almost on top of it."

The car pulled up on the outskirts of town, in a recently built subdivision. Julie jumped from the car with her receiver in hand. Peering down at the display in the darkness, she made her way into a small park playground. Clarke also emerged from the car, lagging behind Julie.

He found himself reflecting upon Julie's current plans again. This Carrie affair was escalating unexpectedly. But why? Until his own relationship with Julie had become ‘semi official' last year, he had never fully grasped the scope of what she had been doing. Even now, Clarke wasn't positive he understood it.

What was Julie’s goal, exactly?

More to the point, how far was he truly willing to go when it came to backing up Julie and her plans? Would there come a time when he would have to put his foot down? To stand up to her? Clarke rubbed the back of his neck.

He wasn't sure he could do that.

For some reason, the words spoken to him by Lance several years ago came to mind: 'Be careful who you cross in the future. Not everyone with the power to pull strings around you is likely to be as... forgiving as me.'

But no, that wasn't why he was unlikely to side against Julie. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Julie with nobody in her corner. One of her rare, genuine smiles had the ability to light up a room.

She wasn't a bad person. All she needed was somebody to save her from herself. The question was, could he be that person?

"Aha," came a shout, and Clarke hurried to catch up.

He need not have rushed. When he reached Julie’s position, he merely found her kneeling in front of a clump of bushes. The receiving device was on the ground next to her, a small mound of freshly dug up earth sat in front of her, and there was something else in her hands.

"What've you got, Jewels?" Clarke asked tentatively. Julie rose and turned to face him. She held out the object she was holding and Clarke squinted at it in the darkness.

It was a dirty and smudged piece of possibly blue plastic in a vaguely horseshoe shape. A hairband? No. Well, maybe, but only if it had been left here by someone for, what, half a century?

"Phil," Julie began slowly. "I'm about to say something that is going to sound totally loopy, yet it fits the facts in every conceivable way that occurs to me. In retrospect, it even makes a strange sort of sense. Please bear with me."

Clarke nodded and Julie took in a deep breath.

"Phil... I have the feeling that somehow, Frank Dijora has managed to invent himself a time machine."

Notes:

This concludes ARC 1.2: Awareness Of Her Peers. The mystery deepens? Up next is ARC 1.3: Awareness Of Her Impact. We'll begin building towards a climax of sorts, introducing more secondary cast members.

Chapter 25: Part 13a: Doubletakes 1

Summary:

Carrie and Frank test drive the time machine, landing in 1955. Where somehow, Carrie is a wanted woman for theft. And are they stuck there?

Notes:

ARC 1.3 (Awareness of Her Impact) begins with a few parts that act as my tribute to the "Back to the Future" movie trilogy. With the occasional "Quantum Leap" reference. See if you can spot all the shout-outs. Feel free to comment with your favourites.

“Exactly how much of your jewellery was taken?"

The hotel manager listened with half an ear as the officer questioned Ms. Peabody. Perfect, this was just perfect. A theft, not only in this budding rural community, but at his new hotel. What more could possibly go wrong with his day?

As if in reply, a bright flash off to the side caught his attention. He turned to look across the lobby, whereby he saw two teenagers, a boy and a girl.

They were standing somewhere he was sure no one had been moments ago.

Moreover, they were dressed rather curiously... notably, the girl was wearing pants, and a pink shirt that didn’t resemble anything trendy. Not even from back in the forties. He rubbed his eyes in confusion, wondering if he was hallucinating.

"Officer,” the manager heard Ms. Peabody call out. “Over there. That's the person who robbed me."

The manager watched as his guest pointed over towards the blonde teenager who had just arrived.

"Arrest that girl, now."

"Oh boy," responded the girl in question.

***

“Don't mind us, just passing through," Carrie offered, once she realized that everyone at the hotel check-in counter was staring her way. Namely some woman, an official looking guy, and a policeman.

"Arrest. Her," the woman reiterated.

"We really can't stay," Carrie insisted. She grabbed Frank and retreated hastily through the hotel entrance, located rather fortuitously behind them.

"What on earth...?" Frank said, obviously still attempting to get his bearings as Carrie pulled him outside.

"Very, very poor choice of time period, Frank," Carrie explained testily. "Reactivate the machine and get us out of here, pronto."

Frank blinked. "But our location is still geographically unknown," he protested. "One of the purposes behind using a penny from '55 was to check the spatial..."

"Frank?” Carrie interjected, dragging her companion down the sidewalk, away from the hotel entrance. At least it was growing dark outside, which could help to obscure them. "Someone is inexplicably after my hide here. Time to make a quick exit.”

"Carrie, I haven't even reset the machine."

Down the street, two men emerged from the hotel, one of them the law enforcement officer.

"Frank," Carrie repeated, shaking him to emphasize her point. "We... go... NOW.”

"We go now," Frank affirmed as he saw them.

Carrie released him and he set the time machine down onto the sidewalk, fumbling for one of the present day coins in his pocket. There was a shout from down the street as they were spotted.

"Fra-ank...?"

"Got it," Frank said, slipping the coin into the time machine. He grabbed the activation lever. "We pull on three. One..."

"Twothree," Carrie finished, slapping her hand down on Frank’s and yanking.

Carrie braced herself for the sensation of the void sucking at her, followed by another time displacement. Except nothing happened.

"Uh, again?" Frank said. They let the lever rise back up into position then pulled down on it once more. Still nothing.

Carrie exhaled between pursed lips. "Someone is going to pay dearly for this," she vowed.

The law enforcement officer cleared his throat from behind them. "The two of you had better come back to the hotel to answer a few questions.”

***

Carrie saw the older woman’s eyes narrow as the police officer and hotel manager escorted her and Frank back into the lobby.

"You should never have come back to me, dearie," the woman said smugly to Carrie. "That wasn't very smart."

"I don't know what you're on about, I've never seen you before," Carrie shot back.

"All right Ms. Peabody, let’s settle down now, let me handle it," the officer soothed. He turned to the teenagers. "Suppose you start by telling us exactly what you're doing here."

Frank exchanged a glance with Carrie. "Yeah, uh, well, our affairs are in a state of flux..." he began.

"We just arrived in town," Carrie interrupted. "My uncle is staying here in the hotel. At least, that's what we thought, but right after coming in, you started shouting at us, and we wondered if maybe we had the wrong set of directions. So we went back out to get our bearings. Any of you heard of the Clayton Hotel?"

"This is the Clayton," affirmed the officer.

"It IS?" Carrie said, taken aback. She took a moment to look more closely at her surroundings. She supposed this could be what the building had looked like in the 1950s. Then they were still in town. That was unexpected.

"You're Mr. Clayton," Frank realized, turning to the manager.

"Do I know either of you?" the manager wondered.

"Uh, no," Frank admitted. "It's just, well..."

"Did my uncle not mention us?" Carrie interrupted again. "I'm Carrie, this is Frank."

"Never heard of you. Who is your uncle?" Mr. Clayton challenged.

"Euh, his name is... Marty McFly.”

Frank shot her a look, which she ignored.

"He should have checked in here on November fourteenth," she added.

"It's November twelfth," Mr. Clayton pointed out.

Carrie rolled her eyes – this time faking surprise, as she’d seen the readout of the time machine and been well aware of that fact. "Really?"

She slugged Frank in the arm.

"You got those dates wrong AGAIN. Why do I even bother traveling anywhere with you?"

Frank grimaced. "Maybe because without me, you'd have no idea how to get where you wanted to go?"

"Hold it," the officer interrupted in a no-nonsense tone of voice. "Regardless of the situation with your uncle, please confirm your whereabouts as of about 4pm today."

"We were on a train, heading into town," Carrie stated.

Ms. Peabody sniffed, shooting a glare at Carrie. "Oh, ignore this girl's babbling. She obviously came back here to gloat after hiding my jewellery somewhere. Don't let the little wench get away with it."

Carrie's eyes snapped back to the woman. "I'm sorry, WHAT did you just call me?" Ms. Peabody took a step back in surprise.

"Ms. Peabody, please," the officer said sharply. "Right now all we have is your word against hers. Carrie... McFly, was it? Can you give me the name of someone able to verify your story?"

"Sure, call my father," Carrie asserted. “You can trust him. He’s a doctor. Phone number 911-1999."

The officer turned to the manager. "I'd prefer to clear this situation up now, if I can. May I use your phone?" Mr. Clayton nodded and the officer proceeded back to the front desk.

"Okay, one down and the others are off their guard," Carrie whispered to Frank. "Get ready to run."

"What?" Frank hissed back. "We can't just..."

"Hey, wait," Carrie gasped, pointing behind everyone. "Guys, what the hell's that?" As the others turned, she grabbed Frank's arm and bolted back for the door.

***

Some time later, Carrie found herself blowing errant strands of hair back off her face. "Great, I lost my favourite hairband during that mad dash," she sighed.

"Your hairband? You're worried about your hairband?" Frank gaped. "Carrie... we're fugitives. You've turned us into fugitives from the law."

“Please, Frank. Don't get all melodramatic," Carrie retorted.

She peered around the trunk of the nearest tree, verifying that their pursuers had either given up once they’d cut into the woods, or managed to go in the wrong direction. The darkness and shrubbery had definitely been helpful for concealment.

"We're not fugitives," Carrie continued, turning back. "We didn't do anything wrong. Obviously I'm not the person they're looking for. It’s 1955. I haven't even been born yet.”

"That's not the point,” Frank accused. "Besides, for all we know, some future you time traveled back to earlier today and ripped off that missing jewellery. Meaning you ARE the person they're looking for."

"Oh please," Carrie scoffed. "What possible motive could I have? Anyway, even then it's not me they're looking for. It's some future me."

Frank pressed a hand to his forehead. “I don't remember you being this spirited the last time the two of us time traveled together."

Carrie shrugged. "Two years ago for you, last week for me. I must say, I’m finding this easier to deal with, now that I have a better sense of what's going on," she admitted. “For that matter, I remember you being a lot better at improvisation."

"I work better within a framework," Frank grumbled. “Plus I never got involved in theatre because I decided to research time travel instead.”

“Ah. That’s fair.” Carrie held up the black box. "Speaking of... what’s up with the time machine? Why didn't it activate? And can you fix it?”

Chapter 26: Part 13b: Doubletakes 2

Summary:

Carrie and Frank have another discussion about how time travel might affect the past, and work out the issue with the time machine. After which Carrie has a run in with a surprising individual.

“I’ve no clue why it didn’t work,” Frank admitted to her. He took the device back and stared at it. "It was one of my two 1955 pennies we used to get here, maybe the machine has some trouble with... no, because the penny I used the other day worked all right."

"Hold on, other day? How many time trips have you taken without me?" Carrie interjected.

Frank sighed and put the time machine down. "I made two trips earlier this week in order to gather more data. You couldn't have come, you were constantly busy after school."

"I was not," Carrie countered. She frowned, thinking back. “Well, not really. I mean, I had cheerleading and track practices. Also that dinner with Bill. But you DO know there’s this thing called a 'social life’, yeah?”

"At any rate," Frank continued, apparently deciding to ignore her question, "I managed to stay in town for each test. Which is part of the reason I called you over on Saturday. To see if the spatial relocation issue was only a factor if there were two travellers."

“Yes, yes. We took a trip two days back, to Thursday, we learned we were in the ravine out back of my house, and then we tried this much larger leap here to 1955," Carrie said.

She folded her arms and leaned back against the tree trunk behind her. “Weird how we're still in town. Or in what will BE the town anyway. If we orient according to the Clayton building, I saw parallels between what's here and what will end up being here. Once they mow down the forest and turn this village into a proper town.”

"Yes," Frank agreed slowly. He frowned. "Now, if only I could figure out why we didn’t stay here for our first trip two years ago..." His voice trailed off as he got lost in thought.

"Frank? The broken machine?" Carrie prompted.

"Oh, right," Frank realized. He frowned. “Well, there was no reason for it not to have worked. Loose connection? I'll check inside."

Carrie rolled her eyes. "You know, at the risk of sounding trite, you have had that device in your possession for almost a week now. I thought you’d have been further along. I didn't authorize a trip to '55 only to be stuck here for all eternity. That is... be stuck in '55 until '56... you know what I mean."

"Authorize?" Frank protested. "What authorize? I thought this was a partnership. And I told you there was some risk involved in this trip.”

"I thought maybe you knew more than you were letting on," Carrie admitted. "I mean, you have two years worth of research behind you. For all I know, you’re stalling, hoping that the longer you play dumb, the better the chances are of me changing my mind about saving my mom.”

Frank let out a quick breath. "Yes, yes, that's exactly it," he said. “Except, oh wait, this device includes circuits and chips I've never seen before. It's a quantum leap forward in technology, Carrie. Even with two years to think about it, a week hasn't been enough to identify much beyond what I did that very first time I saw it. These empirical experiments are the only way for me to learn more. Or they would be if you didn't consistently turn them into a disaster.”

"Hey, don't blame me for that mistaken identity thing,” Carrie retorted. “That Peabody woman needs glasses.”

“I’m not blaming you for that, I’m blaming you for running from the police,” Frank swept his hand out in a final gesture, knocking it hard against a limb of the tree. "Ow..." He bit back a curse, cradling his palm.

Carrie grimaced. “Look, what’s done is done. I’m just trying to keep you motivated here, because I don’t like long term commitments.” She supposed she could be more helpful though; her emotions were continuing to get the best of her. "Uh, your hand okay?"

Carrie moved towards Frank. He pulled away, simultaneously shrugging off the backpack he'd had with him since their arrival.

"I'm fine," Frank mumbled, flexing his fingers. "At least we have provisions, including tools and a flashlight. If you hold it, I'll see if I can find the problem."

Carrie obliged. Several minutes passed by in silence as Frank poked around inside the time machine.

"Well, the air certainly seems a lot more natural and clean in comparison with our year," Carrie offered up. “Except in the hotel. Guess they haven’t banned smoking yet.”

"Uh huh," Frank responded, not looking up from his work.

There was another extended silence. Carrie couldn’t take it. "I wonder," she began again. "My double here... or, well, whoever took that Ms. Peabody's jewellery... could they have been an ancestor of mine?"

"I don't know. Did your ancestors live in this area in '55?"

Carrie considered it. "My parents hadn't been born yet," she reflected. "Maybe my grandparents... though I only know them on my Dad’s side, and they never told stories about being a thief."

Frank shrugged. "Can't think it's the sort of thing one tells grandkids, really. Hold the light steady?"

"Mmmmm." A new thought struck her. She didn’t like it. “Do you think whoever it was might be in even more trouble now, given how I ran away?” Carrie asked.

"Anything's possible," Frank said, eyes still on the device.

“I can’t help reacting instinctively... you don't think I've changed history, do you? Wait, strike that, of course not, you think the past and the future are already mapped out. However, if changing the past IS possible, I might have changed something, right?"

“Maybe. As you said, not much we can do about that now."

"Unless we change things back," Carrie pointed out.

"Potentially making the situation worse," Frank objected. “As we don't know anything about what's going on in this time period."

“I know that,” Carrie agreed, trying to suppress her irritation. “But what if that Ms. Peabody punishes someone else for my actions?"

“You should have thought of that earlier.” Frank moved to close the time machine back up. "Anyway, that's that."

"Oh, figure out the problem?" Carrie turned off the flashlight.

Frank nodded. "The machine is, for lack of a better word, recharging. Everything is operational, some parts simply aren't receiving power. I can only conclude that they will once the assembly cools down, meaning business as usual if we wait it out. I took the opportunity to reset the thing for the present."

"Meaning we are stuck here in the past?"

"Yes, but not for long," Frank assured. "If I had to guess, I'd say the problem was the distance of the jump - we have traveled back over half a century, after all. For all we know, the machine acted like this when we jumped to the airport too. We’ve never tried activating it again so soon after arrival."

"I see," Carrie remarked dryly. She clicked the flashlight back on. "Well then, looks like I have some time to relocate my hairband."

Frank blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Well, what do you suggest, that we spend two hours sitting here staring at the damn device? I'd rather be doing something productive. And I liked that hairband."

"Carrie, have you forgotten that there are people out there looking for us?”

"I'll be careful,” Carrie asserted. "And really, where's the harm in checking? It’s okay to take the flashlight, yeah?” Without really waiting for an answer, she turned to leave.

***

Frank opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it and let Carrie go. She might as well leave, versus staying here for a new argument. Or even a random talk, as she didn’t seem inclined to sit quietly.

Honestly, Carrie could be so... so... stubborn and self-absorbed. He wasn’t sure why he’d thought that would change after her first time travel experiences. In fact, her personality was one of the main reasons Frank hadn't yet said anything to her about that phone call he'd received last week.

The one warning him about Julie. With a number that had been untraceable.

Granted, Frank knew little about Julie aside from the fact that she was a "rich socialite" at school who was also Carrie's friend. Phil Clarke had him dead to rights there.

Yet he did think that the latter could indicate Carrie had a blind spot. If Julie suspected, maybe Carrie would simply want to tell her about the device, despite their need for secrecy. No, better to keep the Julie concerns to himself for the moment.

Frank sat down at the base of the tree, staring up into the sky. Now that he had time to think, what WAS the deal with that phone call?

Did it signify that some higher powers were observing them? Did that in turn mean that Frank and Carrie's safety was being looked after? Not something Frank really wanted to count on.

He grimaced. Ironically, not trusting others was a good reason for bringing Carrie along when time traveling.

The trips Frank had taken on his own earlier in the week had been poorly executed. Particularly the one when he'd ended up back at the school, right before classes changed. He was not as adept as Carrie at making quick adjustments to new situations.

Carrie, on the other hand? Well, Frank doubted that he’d have been able to fake his way through half of that story she had given about Uncle McFly in the hotel. Certainly not with Carrie's finesse, movie references notwithstanding.

But then again, he might not have had to do it if they hadn't fingered her as a thief, right?

"Can't travel with her, can't travel without her," Frank concluded with a sigh.

He considered pulling the book out of his backpack, except the problem there was how Carrie had the flashlight.

***

Carrie shone the light into the underbrush, looking for any sign of blue while simultaneously listening for anything around her that was out of the ordinary. In case the police were still looking.

Her mind, though, was on other things entirely. Namely the situation they'd been dropped into.

Had she had a brush with a long-lost relative of sorts? Frank's unproven theories aside, had she affected history? Carrie couldn't think of anything in her present that felt out of place... but then, based on prior experience, she'd be remembering any changes as the original history already.

It was very tempting to sneak back into town and satisfy her curiosity about the doppelgänger situation. Except Carrie had to admit that the potential danger was too great.

She sighed. This whole time travel business was starting to affect her life. How might any future actions she made in the past end up affecting the timeline? Particularly where her mother was concerned?

Such thoughts had driven her to distraction more than once in the past week. Often necessitating an apology to whomever she’d been talking to.

Which had caught some of her classmates off guard, as if they'd expected to share the blame for her own inattentiveness.

She didn’t always lash out, did she?

Her brow furrowed. Then there was that date she’d had with Bill the previous night. The guy had turned out to be a lot duller than she’d expected. And he’d had difficulty keeping his eyes on her face.

Which, on the one hand, whatever, so long as she got a free meal, but on the other... Carrie was starting to wonder how well she really knew the people around her.

A hint of blue caught the blonde's eye and she pushed those unsettling thoughts out of her head. That must it, her favourite hairband.

She approached the blue object and stooped down to retrieve it. Which was when something hit her from behind, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Dazed but not out, Carrie rolled over in order to see who or what had just attacked her.

The shock of seeing a strangely dressed mirror image of herself, standing there wielding a heavy tree branch, was enough to allow her assailant to get in another swing. The world exploded in a field of stars before fading to black.

Chapter 27: Part 14a: Doubletakes 3

Summary:

Carrie learns more about Ms Peabody from someone living in the 1950s who looks similar to herself, but is named Beth Parker. She then comes up with a unique solution for how to proceed.

"Hello? You okay?" came a tentative voice.

Carrie moaned. Everything looked black, but after a second she realized that was because it was still dark outside, and her eyes were having trouble focusing. She blinked them a few times, working at determining where she was, and who was speaking.

She was sitting on the ground, propped back up against the trunk of a tree, with her arms tied behind her. There was a person crouching down next to her. It was... herself. A Carrie double.

"You're... you're my... who are you?" Carrie demanded as she realized that up close, it wasn’t her. This woman looked a little older, with softer facial features. Plus the blonde was wearing a different outfit, one more appropriate to the 1950s.

The other girl took a fumbling step backwards at Carrie's tone. "I could ask you the same question. Did you really think I'd let you take over without a fight?"

Carrie stared. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

"About your impersonating me in front of Ms. Peabody,” her companion challenged. "How long did you think you could get away with it?"

"Impersonating you was not my plan,” Carrie said in irritation. "In fact, if you want to turn yourself in for the jewellery theft, please be my guest."

It was Carrie's captor's turn to stare. "Jewellery theft?" she said nervously.

Carrie rolled her eyes. "Yes, the one your Ms. Peabody tried to arrest me for an hour or two ago," she elaborated.

"You stole her jewellery?" the other girl gasped. "How COULD you?"

"No, *I* didn't do it, I just got into town,” Carrie said in exasperation. "I'm assuming you did it, since you look like me."

"I would never do such a thing. And what do you mean you just got into town, *I* just got into town. You've been impersonating me for the last two months, spoiling my chances at stardom. Tell me, please... did... did I do something to you that made you want to ruin my life?"

Carrie groaned. “Time out. My name is Carrie Waterson. I don't know you. I don't know Ms. Peabody. I haven't been in this part of the country until now. If you're looking for some evil twin, it's not me. Are we perfectly clear on this?"

"I don't understand."

“Well, I really can't make that any clearer. Suppose you run your story by me? That might help," Carrie proposed.

The girl sized Carrie up before speaking again. "My name is Beth Parker," she admitted, warily. "I'm hoping to become a singer. When I started looking for work last year, I met Ms. Peabody. As it turns out, my voice and looks were perfect for a set of commercials her new company wanted to do. Unfortunately, she was a little low on funds, so we pooled our resources together in order to launch the effort."

Carrie mulled the name 'Beth Parker' over in her mind, but she couldn't think of anyone by that name in her family tree. So their passing resemblance could be a fluke. More to the point, this blonde’s story seemed to have a natural extrapolation.

"So, you figure someone else took your place, running off with the proceeds?"

"Exactly,” Beth affirmed. "See, the company inexplicably vanished one day. But I had some money hidden away, enough to track Ms. Peabody's whereabouts. It’s taken two months, but I caught up with her earlier today - and she said that she'd been dealing with me the whole time. Somehow, I'd authorized the dissolution of the company, and we were working together on a new plan. She asked me to take a little walk, then come back by the hotel at 6pm, at which point we could deal properly with the situation."

Beth narrowed her eyes as she continued.

"I was a little late, and saw someone who resembled me escorting a policeman inside. That was YOU, wasn't it? I kept watch. And when I never showed, forcing you all to run off in your search party, I tailed you. Got lost in the woods, granted, but saw your hairband, and was hoping you'd come back for it. So what have you done, ‘Carrie’? Stolen Ms. Peabody's jewellery to make me look like a thief?"

Carrie let her head fall back against the tree behind her with a quiet 'thunk'. "Oh boy," she mumbled again.

She had a suspicion as to what was going on here now, namely that Ms. Peabody might not be as legitimate a businesswoman as she claimed to be. But how could she ever prove that? Not to mention convince Beth of the situation, without revealing her own identity as a time traveler.

Carrie unexpectedly found herself at a loss for words, with no idea of where to begin. If only she had more time... which was when the idea hit her like a bolt of lightning.

***

A deck of cards. He should make sure to stick a deck of cards in the backpack, Frank decided. It would be useful during times such as these, providing more entertainment than squinting at a compass needle.

With a sigh, Frank tossed the compass aside, resuming his stargazing. It was about all he could do at this point. Where had Carrie disappeared to with the flashlight?

Peering at his watch, Frank discovered that she'd left well over an hour ago. This was starting to make him uneasy; he'd been writing it off as Carrie's stubborn resolve to find her hairband, or perhaps to avoid him.

But what if she was really in trouble? Could she have been arrested by that police officer?

"Should I go after her?" Frank mused aloud.

Yet what if she was merely lost in the woods, and he was the one who ended up getting caught by going to look for her? Besides, she had demonstrated that she could handle herself.

On the other hand, what if she had been hurt, the way he had been that time in the past? Frank finally decided that he couldn't keep sitting here. He stood up with a sigh and hefted the backpack, preparing to head out on a search.

"Carrie, you'd better be in trouble," Frank declared.

"Thanks, Frank," Carrie retorted. Frank spun to see her approaching him through the trees. "Nice to know you care."

"Carrie, you're all right?"

"Sorry to disappoint you."

"I didn't mean... that is..." Frank sighed yet again. What was the use. "Never mind. Find your hairband?" he asked wearily.

Carrie pursed her lips. "In a manner of speaking," she responded, now looking defensive.

Which was when Frank realized that she seemed to have changed her shirt. How was that even possible?

"You see Frank... it appears that it was our destiny to come back here to 1955 in order to help a young girl named Beth."

"What do you mean? As I’ve indicated, it's not our part to get involved."

"It's a bit late for that," Carrie admitted. A strand of hair found its way into her hands and she started twirling it. "Because in some sense I know that we've already done what I'm about to do."

It took a second for Frank to parse that. "Oh no. No, no, no, Carrie... I'm not liking where this is going."

Carrie smiled and made a vague hand gesture. "Guess what, Frank. There are now two of me here, and there are two of you here. The other me is the one who helps Beth, before going back with you to the present. The other you has gone to provide my evidence to the two of them, even as we speak."

Frank pressed a hand to his head. "Then... you're a Carrie who's come back. Back from the future."

"It was the best solution I could come up with," Carrie conceded. "I needed proof of some shady dealings that I couldn't get while in this time period. But look on the bright side. In a way, we're validating your theory of self-consistency.”

"I can see that being a reason for me to tag along," Frank mumbled. "But all the same, Carrie, I think we're long overdue for a discussion on the ramifications of temporal paradox."

"Oh, honestly Frank, you worry too much," Carrie assured. "Now come on, I'll give you the highlights of my plan."

***

"You're sure this is going to work?" Frank whispered.

The previous Carrie, the one with whom he’d originally taken this time trip, nodded in reply. "Our future selves gave me the key details. Everything will work out perfectly."

"Uh huh," Frank said, dubiously. “And you're sure Beth won't clue in that we're time travellers?"

"Yes, Frank," said Carrie patiently. “Because when your future self arrived with the necessary documentation, showing Beth that Ms. Peabody had been engaging in illegal activities, your now present self wasn't anywhere around. I got Beth to go along with this scheme on account of that, when my future self was finding you. Since we waited until Beth left before your future double traded places, Beth never saw any doubles together at the same time. So no problem. And our future selves have now gone back to hide in the woods, meaning she’ll never know.”

Frank ran a hand back through his hair. "Riiiight." He paused. “Thing is, what if our future selves simply said what they did to be consistent with what we heard. Meaning things could still go wrong for us, and we’ll end up lying about it when we became our future doubles."

"Frank?" Carrie hissed, her hands unconsciously forming into fists. "Will you stop already? You're actually starting to make me nervous.”

"Okay, okay," Frank said, raising his hands defensively.

Carrie peered at her watch, which read 9:55. "Damn," she muttered. "Damn, damn. Where is that Beth? That policeman is going to leave the hotel again if she waits any longer."

Frank cleared his throat uncertainly. "Er, I think that's her now," he indicated.

Carrie turned to look back around the corner of the block, watching as Beth walked up to the front of the Clayton hotel.

Carrie grinned. "Showtime,” she announced.

Chapter 28: Part 14b: Doubletakes 4

Summary:

We learn how Carrie's hairband was left in the 1950s, as she returns to the present with a newfound awareness of herself. Though, this adventure with Frank is not quite over yet.

The hotel manager simply wanted this day to be over.

"Officer Strickland, all I know is what I was told over the phone,” he explained. "Someone said that the case of the missing jewellery would be solved if I got you and Ms. Peabody back here, in an empty lobby, at ten minutes to ten."

“This is pointless," snapped Ms. Peabody. "It's obviously a ruse set up by the blonde thief so that she has a chance to escape. If you'll excuse me, I have other affairs that need tending to."

"Ms. Peabody, please,” Strickland said. "At this point, we're a little short on leads and manpower for a search. There's no harm in following up on this." He glanced at his watch. "Though if nothing happens in the next five minutes, we can be on our way."

A strangely clothed blonde chose that moment to walk through the front doors of the hotel. Her appearance was greeted with varied degrees of surprise on the faces of the people present.

"Hold it right there," the officer advised her as he approached. "Why have you returned? Are you turning yourself in?"

The blonde at the door bit her lip. "What?" she inquired softly. "Ms. Peabody, what’s going on? I took that long walk as you suggested, and am afraid that I got lost. Is it too late to discuss our Lyon Estates company?"

Ms. Peabody met the gaze evenly, finally shaking her head. "Beth, I can't figure out if you're even stupider than I thought, or are finally doing something smart by giving yourself up."

"I'm not sure I understand," Beth said. "After everything we went through last year, are you really going to let me get arrested? This is really how you're going to conclude our association?"

Officer Strickland frowned. "Ms. Peabody, do you know this girl?"

There was a pause before Ms. Peabody shook her head again. "Aside from the time she tried to steal my jewellery, I have never seen this girl."

"Then it's true," Beth choked out. “What that boy told me, it's all true. God, I've been so naive."

The law enforcement officer glanced from Beth to Ms. Peabody and back. “Miss, unless you have a real alibi for about 4pm today, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me and answer some questions," he concluded, stepping towards the blonde.

Mr. Clayton had taken the opportunity of the discussion to move around to block the doorway. Which meant he was caught quite off guard when it opened behind him.

"All right," a new blonde girl announced. "I give up. I'm turning myself in," she declared, striding into the lobby. Her arrival elicited both surprise and confusion.

Mr. Clayton rubbed his eyes. "There's two of them," he declared.

"Great Scott," exclaimed the officer, looking back and forth between them. "Er, Ms. Peabody, these two women do look remarkably similar. Can you say for certain which one of them was involved in the theft?"

The businesswoman struggled for a moment to regain her composure as she looked back and forth, ultimately raising a finger to point at the blonde who had first arrived. "It's her. This new girl looks too young."

"What are you talking about?" the younger arrival retorted. “I’m the one who confessed to the crime.”

"All right, hold on a second here," Strickland said. "Let's keep this orderly... first of all, ladies, let me get your names for the record."

"My name is Carrie," said the girl in the blue hairband.

"And I'm Beth," the new arrival asserted.

"That's a lie,” Ms. Peabody realized. "Officer, they must be working together, they've reversed their names."

“Yet you said you'd never seen me before," Beth murmured. "So how do you even know what my name should be?"

Ms. Peabody opened and closed her mouth. “Th-Through my investigations this evening. Besides, it was that other girl by the door who identified herself as Carrie McFly earlier today. Remember, officer?"

Carrie spun. "Mr. Clayton,” she challenged. "The person Ms. Peabody is referring to, do you recall what was she wearing?"

"Euh, well, dark pants, pink top, blue hairband... what that girl has on right now I believe," he answered, indicating Beth.

Carrie nodded and turned back to Ms. Peabody. "In other words, the girl currently claiming to be Carrie is wearing exactly the same thing as the girl who was claiming to be Carrie before. To know that my companion here is, in fact, Beth... well that would imply some former associations with her."

"Childish nonsense," Ms. Peabody sputtered. "Officer, these two are obviously in league together, so you should arrest them both."

"Now hold on a minute here," Strickland replied slowly. "That is a potentially interesting point they've raised."

"I know more," Carrie noted with a smile. "Ms. Peabody has been behind several scams running in nearby towns. She was lying low here. Meaning Beth showing up today was a problem. So the woman invented the missing jewellery story to get the poor girl out of the way long enough to finish tying up loose ends before fleeing the country."

"I don't have to stay here and listen to this. You have no proof of anything you're saying."

"Actually, I do," Carrie responded smoothly. "First of all, there's currently an airplane ticket among your possessions. I also have a financial statement, which shows that a lot of money, including Beth's, has been routed to an account in Switzerland. Plus I have a list of five names, all of whom will probably make good witnesses at trial."

Carrie pulled the papers from the waistband of her 1950s skirt and handed them over to the officer.

"Interesting," Strickland acknowledged, scanning over the documents. "As a matter of fact, Ms. Peabody, I have been keeping my eye on you these last few days. We don't get many rich folks around these parts, and you've been making a lot of phone calls. I believe I will look into this. Very carefully."

"You meddling little tramp," Ms. Peabody snapped at Carrie, fire in her eyes. “Where did you get all of this information?"

Carrie pursed her lips. “I’m receiving it through divine intervention. For you see, I am Beth’s guardian angel."

Mr. Clayton did a double take. "You're... you're an angel," he repeated disbelievingly.

"Oh well, see, that does it, case closed, this girl is insane," Ms. Peabody retorted.

Carrie brushed some hair back off her shoulder. "On the contrary, I shall now prove it to you - by departing from your plane of existence," Carrie asserted.

She moved to knock on the hotel doors.

"Frank?”

***

'I can't believe I'm going along with this,' Frank thought to himself as he entered the lobby. 'I really can't... I'm not even positive that the machine has regained sufficient power... but at this point, what else am I going to do?'

Frank smiled wanly at everyone before setting the device down on the floor next to Carrie, keeping a hand on the lever.

"Now then officer, I trust that I can leave this matter in your very capable hands?" Carrie concluded.

"Er, yes, but... just a moment here,” Officer Strickland objected. "I must insist that you not leave the area yet. You may be required as a character witness. The situation has not yet been fully resolved.”

Carrie smiled. "It will be. You can say you got those records from an accountant by the name of Tiff Bannon." She crouched down next to the time machine and took in a deep breath. "My work here is done. So... 'bye now."

Carrie gave a little wave, reaching back with her free hand to yank down on the lever, along with Frank. There was a bright light, a popping sound and the both of them disappeared.

***

"What on earth?" gasped Mr. Clayton, running over to the spot where they had been. He waved his hand through the air, then rubbed his eyes in a daze.

He then proceeded to return to the main doors and peer outside.

"They're gone. Oh man, oh man. I'll never be able to repeat this story to anyone, they'll think I'm nuts."

Ms. Peabody hmphed, edging back towards the stairway. "Well, if the fantasy show is over, I'll be on my way."

"Not so fast," Officer Strickland challenged, regaining his composure. "As I said, this information will be looked over in detail. And regardless of its, er, source, I'd say your future is looking pretty grim. Mr. Clayton, please restrain Ms. Peabody in your office until I can verify some of this, and contact the requisite authorities."

Clayton nodded, moving to comply. Thankfully, Ms. Peabody seemed to realize the jig was up, and simply stood fuming.

Strickland then turned towards the room’s only other occupant. “Meanwhile Miss Beth, you'd better come with me, there are some questions to... Beth?"

Beth was still staring in awe at where Carrie and Frank had disappeared.

"She really was an angel," the blonde choked out at last. "Both of them were. I mean, she said it before, but I never really believed it. My God, I actually had angels looking out for me? It's... it's almost enough to restore one's faith in humanity. Isn't it?"

As Mr. Clayton watched, the blonde slipped off the blue hairband she'd been wearing and looked down at it.

"If only I'd had some way to thank them."

***

Somewhere back in the woods, Carrie peered at her watch while Frank absently shuffled his deck of cards. By his calculations, they still had an hour or so left until the time machine regained enough power for their trip back.

"You know Carrie," Frank said, "There's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Oh, what NOW, Frank?" Carrie moaned, looking up. "I mean, despite the fact that some evidence was deemed questionable, Ms. Peabody will still be convicted, and sentenced to a jail term of 25 years. Mr. Clayton will take Beth on as a worker in his new hotel, allowing her to raise enough money to launch herself on a little singing career. Despite our theatrics, our own research showed that we’re not even a footnote in the time period. And if your question is going to get us into another quasi-religious debate, I'd rather not go there again.”

"It's not any of that," Frank retorted.

Carrie folded her arms. "What then?"

"It's this. Based on what we learned, it was Beth Parker's own fault that she was taken advantage of, owing to her being too trusting of the wrong person. Meaning I wouldn't have expected you to have much sympathy for her. Yet you still helped out, all the while knowing that Beth couldn't give you anything in return. Why?"

Carrie frowned at that. “She had me tied up. This was a way to get her off my back," she replied. "Besides, I got to put on quite a performance."

Frank peered closer, as if trying to see Carrie’s expression better in the darkness. "That's the only reason...?"

"Frank, if you don't shut up, I'm going to make you walk funny for a week," she grumbled.

Frank dutifully shut up, and began to deal the cards.

Still, much as she hated to admit it, Frank had a point. It wasn't exactly like her to shell out such time and effort without expectation of a personal payoff.

However, by putting something right that might have otherwise gone wrong... it did give Carrie the strange feeling of a job well done. But then, why resist owning up to that?

She had even sacrificed her preferred hairband, all in the name of both helping Beth and confusing that arrogant Ms. Peabody. She had accepted a loss here. Not that a hairband would matter in the grand scheme of things. Right?

Carrie was still reflecting on what had motivated her actions an hour later, when she and Frank reactivated the time machine - and failed to reach their present day.

Notes:

You may have noticed that I took advantage of this being a written medium, rather than a visual one, to slightly misdirect. I hope it worked well, feel free to let me know!

Chapter 29: Part 15a: With Kaleidoscope Eyes

Summary:

Here's a look at what happened in the present while "Doubletakes" was going on in 1955. Including Luci, Frank's classmate, who seems to know more than she should.

Lucille Isabella Primrose woke up and reached over to her night table, flipping on the light. The sunlight had not yet begun to filter though her tiny basement window, however the clock indicated that morning had arrived.

Stretching to help shake off the lingering sensations of sleep, the young asian girl threw back her covers and retrieved her page-a-day Mensa calendar. Tearing off the next sheet, she scanned over the new puzzle, reflected on it briefly, then picked up a pencil and scribbled in an answer. After which she looked at the date itself.

"Saturday. The end of September," Luci murmured aloud. She smiled. “I should be able to talk with Frank about the time machine today,” she concluded.

***

"Jewels, I'm starting to worry about you. Seriously."

"I'm not crazy,” the brunette snapped back.

Clarke watched as she glanced around the library foyer, to see if that had attracted the attention of anyone standing nearby, before lowering her voice.

"Frank Dijora must have a time machine," she insisted. "It fits the facts. But I can deal with this, as long as I kick things up another notch."

“It’s not your conclusion, but the obsession which is worrying me," Clarke clarified. "Is whatever Frank and Carrie are doing really so important to you?"

Julie stared up at him as if he'd suddenly grown a third eye. “More than anyone else, you know how I've spent a couple of years building up my status at school. At this point, Carrie’s actions reflect on me, and I'm not about to let a damn geek mess all of that up to the point where I cannot attain my future goal. Time travel or not."

"But why, Jewels? What goal is this important to you?"

Julie set her jaw. "Come on, Phil," she said, starting to walk away. "We need to figure out what we're up against."

Clarke followed after her. "Okay, okay," he said, recognizing the signs that he’d pushed her as far as he could. For now. “Though how do we do that in the library?"

"Either Frank or Carrie – or both – will travel into the distant past in our near future, as evidenced by the fact that we found an ancient version of Carrie's hairband," Julie explained.

She reached the stairs and started to descend.

“Therefore, their activities may have been recorded in said past. If we can find irregularities in old newspaper headlines, their actions back then could provide a clue as to their future motives here.”

Clarke frowned. “What makes you think they’ve got motives in mind?"

“What makes you think they don’t? At the least, Carrie’s being evasive, implying their goals clash with mine. I must obtain further information, or I cannot accurately predict what they'll do next."

"And you're sure they’re working together?"

"In some capacity, obviously," Julie said. She paused, waiting until a library patron had walked past them. “The real question is whether Carrie’s a willing participant or an ignorant pawn - perhaps Frank's time machine comes equipped with a mind control device? Regardless, I cannot presently trust her. Fortunately, with my transmitter now in place," she concluded, fishing the small receiver device out of her pocket, "I'll at least know where Carrie is, at all times.”

"She's here in the library," Clarke said.

Julie looked closer at her receiver. "No, she seems to be at Frank's house. I’ll have to ask about that later.”

"No, she's here in the library," Clarke insisted, placing a hand on Julie's shoulder to halt her advance. "Pretty sure that's her up there in the records area."

Julie shifted her gaze to the room ahead of them. "You're right," she gasped.

She grabbed Clarke's hand, pulling them back into a row of nearby bookshelves before they were seen.

"And was that Frank in there with her? How could they beat me here? And what's Carrie's hairband doing back at Frank's house?"

"There could be two of her again," Clarke offered.

"Good point," Julie acknowledged. "Perhaps I should call Frank's place to--" She stopped speaking as the signal from the transmitter vanished off her screen. It was now totally blank, as she had previously deactivated the sixty-ish year old device they’d obtained last Thursday.

“Hm. Low battery?”

“No,” Julie said, shaking the receiver. "Damn it, the thing’s brand new, how can it be... of course.” Julie smacked her palm against her forehead. "How stupid can I be? If Frank really has a time machine, he has access to the future. He must have learned about the tracking device.”

She let out a quiet curse.

"No wonder they seem to be two steps ahead of me. They’re probably in the library now to destroy certain records before I can find them.”

"Jewels... stay calm..."

“Perhaps it’s even Frank's future self who invented the time machine," Julie reasoned, ignoring Clarke's plea. “Leaving it back here in our present for himself. But, in changing his past, he may not yet realize how much he’s revealed to me. If I’m careful, I can still recover from this.”

"Jewels..."

Julie snapped her gaze over to Clarke. "Phil, do me a favour? Stay here and let me know what Carrie and Frank do? I have to go back home and adjust my timelines."

"Don't you think you're working too hard already?" Clarke protested.

His words fell on deaf ears, as Julie had already spun on her heel and was heading back towards the stairs. He watched her retreating form with sadness in his eyes.

***

Luci drummed her fingers absently on the tabletop. Would Frank be in the library already? In order to avoid running into him there, how long should she stay at the cafe?

"Everything all right?" asked Theresa, interrupting the young girl’s thoughts.

Luci blinked up at the waitress and smiled faintly. “Yes, the sandwiches are fine, thanks."

Theresa nodded. “Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.”

Luci started to nod, but instead asked, “Don't you get tired of talking to people, day in and day out?"

Theresa laughed lightly. "No, not really," she admitted. “This job is an interesting study into human nature. For instance, many people have similar problems, yet I find each individual is unique in their own way."

Luci tilted her head to the side. "Unique how?”

"It depends. For you, the first thing that leapt out at me is your eyes," Theresa admitted. "They show such... intensity. And intelligence. Plus it's like they're both green and blue at same time. Quite a remarkable effect, really."

"I've been told that's genetic," Luci acknowledged. “Though with me being adopted, I don’t know for sure."

Theresa nodded. "A first for me, anyway. Of course, maybe I'll eventually become jaded and cynical... but when I stop seeing customers as individuals, it might be time to move on to another line of work." She smiled. "Speaking of which, I'd better get back to it. Let me know when you're ready for the bill."

This time Luci nodded, and Theresa moved off. The waitress was an observer, Luci reflected - a trait the young girl could readily identify with.

***

"You know Frank, I've been thinking," Carrie remarked as she plunked down another large book full of old news accounts. "Why can't we go into the future to figure out what the outcome of all your time experiments will be? After all, we're looking for records of what happened in 1955 to help Beth. We should be able to apply that same principle to ourselves."

"The time machine only travels into the past," Frank reminded her, without even looking up from his own book.

He wondered idly what it was Carrie had against silence. At least she wasn’t grumbling about the 1950s outfit any more, as they’d dropped by her house for a change of clothes before coming here.

"Correction, it travels to whatever time period you have coins for," Carrie rebuffed. "We should be able to travel as far forward as December 31st of this year.”

Frank did look up at that. "True," he conceded. "But, okay, say I go a month into the future to do as you say. That means there is now no need for me to do any testing. It invokes a time paradox, whereby I'll have the results without ever doing the experiments.”

Carrie shrugged. "Having the results doesn't mean you can't perform the experiments. In fact, we'd be prepared for the outcomes, and at the same time, we could put the information we will have received to better use.”

He suspected from her tone that ‘better use’ meant dealing with her missing mother.

“Carrie, knowing beforehand might mean we do something which nullifies an experiment, or results in there being a completely different set of results,” Frank protested. "We can't trust data for tests we haven't seen.”

“Sure we can, your future’s unchangeable, right?”

“Data obtained that way could still be faulty.”

"You have no sense of adventure,” Carrie argued.

"You have no sense of responsibility," Frank fired back.

"You have no sense of fun."

"You have no sense of paradox."

"You... shut up," Carrie said, giving Frank’s shoulder a shove. He fell off his library stool. "You have no sense of balance," she declared triumphantly.

Frank closed his eyes and counted to five. “Is there some reason you always have to get your way?” he asked.

“I don’t always have to get my... um..."

Frank reopened his eyes and looked back up at her. She was frowning, her lips drawn in. Could it be she was actually reflecting on her daily actions? He stood back up, deciding to press the advantage.

Chapter 30: Part 15b: With Kaleidoscope Eyes

Summary:

Others learn about the library research Frank and Carrie were doing, but it seems only Luci wants to actually talk about it.

"Carrie, listen. Time travel is more complicated than you're making it out to be,” Frank said. “Take the apple for instance."

“What apple?" she grumbled back.

"Last Sunday, you caused an apple to appear and disappear at my house. You dropped it off early in the day, then picked it up later in the day, only to travel back and drop it off. I honestly haven't been able to figure out where it came from. I tried duplicating the experiment, and well... I couldn't. So, can you identify where the apple originated?"

Carrie’s forehead creased. “What are you going on about? I’d been thinking about having an apple, and you had one. If it wasn't yours... well, I don't know. It must have come from somewhere."

"It didn't," Frank insisted. "That's my whole point. It originated and vanished with you. A temporal paradox. In a similar vein, your information passing with respect to your trip to the day of the fire alarm bears scrutiny. How did you learn of my theories? Because of your future self. But how did your future self know? Because they heard it when they were your past self. So where did the information truly originate?"

"Frank, stop, you're going to give me a headache."

He leaned against the table in the library’s records room. “You see? I’m trying to show you how complicated time travel is. Honestly, you need to consider all your actions more carefully. It's almost like you have some... some personal affinity for these causal loops."

Carrie pressed a hand to her temple. “Fine, good for me then."

Her gaze fell back down to the book before her.

"Though, hey, wait a minute... let’s apply one of these paradox loops to our research here. We don’t need to look up all this stuff on 1955 when I mostly remember what I said to Peabody. Right?"

Frank's eyebrow twitched. "Carrie, you missed my point. We want to AVOID these situations, not create more of them. Besides, I’M the one who has to convince Beth of the situation. And unless I see proof with my own eyes, I'm not going to be convinced, let alone be able to convince her."

"But since I also remember most of what you said to her, I could write out... hey, wait, here’s a better paradox,” Carrie said, brightening. "What if we were to decide NOT to go back to 1955. Never becoming our future selves. What would THAT do?"

A pained expression crossed Frank's face. Getting Carrie to reflect on time paradoxes might not have been so smart after all.

"I don't even want to start thinking about that,” he concluded. "We are going back, Carrie, and we are learning this stuff through research. Keep checking the newspapers. Please?"

“Oh, fine,” Carrie sighed. “Though I wish the library would digitize this already. At the very least, next time around I should make sure to mention to my past self where I found the references to Peabody's trial. I mean, honestly, shouldn’t two angels being involved have drawn a little extra attention?"

Frank winced. "Actually," he began tentatively. "Now that you've brought that up, I, er, have been a little worried about us being portrayed in that manner too."

"Uh-oh," said Carrie suspiciously. "Is this going to turn into a quasi-religious debate? Because I'm not sure I want to go there..."

***

Luci entered the library a little later, making her way downstairs towards the section where old records were kept. At long last, things seemed to be coming together nicely, both in her own mind, as well as in what was going on around her. She hoped the trend would continue.

"Yo, short stuff," came a voice interrupting her thoughts. "What brings you by the book nook?"

Luci turned to see a classmate from school, the one who always had somewhat unruly hair. He was stacking books nearby. "Hello Lee," she responded. "Actually, I was wondering whether Frank was around."

Lee scratched his head. “He was here earlier on in my shift. Him and the track tease. They may've left by now though. If I spot the math whiz again, should I mention you're on the prowl for him?"

"No, I'd rather you didn't."

"Okee-dokee, no problemo," Lee affirmed with a grin. "Hey, speaking of math, how'd you do on that last test? Only pulled off a 73 myself, think I rounded too much on the circle questions."

"81," Luci countered. Which had been the mark she'd been aiming for, by making those few mistakes. Not that she was about to admit that to anyone.

"Whoa, good show. Spend much time studying?"

"Enough," she answered. "Look, Lee, I'd rather not talk now."

"Oh, okay," Lee said. "I've gotta get back to shelving these self-help books anyway... hey, maybe I can make up a big sign for 'em that reads 'Help Yourself'. What do you think?"

Luci smiled. "Whatever makes you happy, Lee."

"Nah, more like whatever makes the librarians happy," Lee mused, shrugging at Luci before turning away.

The young girl merely shook her head before continuing towards the rear of the library. Hoping that the record books Frank and Carrie had been using had not yet been re-shelved.

***

"Carrie and Frank were in the library for at least three hours,” Clarke reported. “Based on what they left out on the table, they were researching this area in the mid to late 1950s."

“Only the '50s?" Julie said in surprise. "What could possibly be of interest to them from that time period?"

Clarke shrugged. “No way to know. The town itself was barely a town back then. I think it originally sprung up from being a convenient place for a railway station or something."

"Huh. Well, maybe Frank was looking for a good time period to leave my transmitter. He didn’t count on the battery life and my still being able to find it. Anything else to report?" Julie pressed.

Clarke shook his head.

“Then you could have told me this over the phone," Julie concluded. "Why come here? Are you about to get on my case again about how I'm pushing myself too hard?"

“Apparently I don’t have to," Clarke indicated. “Honestly, would it be so bad to declare a break for the rest of the afternoon? We could go to the cafe and share a hot chocolate.”

“I can’t afford any downtime now,” Julie said brusquely. Perhaps seeing his expression, her voice softened. "Though... maybe once the worst of this is over, I'll take you up on the offer."

"And when is the worst of this over?"

“Less than two months, by my modified schedule.”

Clarke sighed. He considered pressing the point that Julie should relax, but he knew Julie, knew her moods, and knew that continuing this argument would only serve to push her away. Moreover, this might be a good opportunity to press another point.

"All right," Clarke relented. "But if you're about to go to work on some big plans taking up the entire month of October... can't you at least tell me why?"

"Because," Julie simply replied.

Clarke stood quietly, waiting for more. Julie opened her mouth again, perhaps to give another typically evasive retort, but then her lips closed. She turned away.

"Phil," she continued at last, "Have you ever had anyone tell you that you were worthless? Insignificant? Someone who could never amount to anything in this world?"

"No," Clarke responded, quite taken aback.

"Good. Count yourself lucky," Julie stated sharply. With that, she strode out of the sitting room, not even looking back as she concluded, "Jeeves can show you out."

***

The brunette quickly retreated back down to her 'play room', collapsing into the lone chair she kept there. She was annoyed with herself. Why had she said that to Phil? Was she weakening under his constant barrage of questioning?

Julie shook her head. No - she hadn’t revealed anything, and now he would get off her back for a while. That was what she wanted. Right?

Julie shivered. For one alarming moment, she wasn't sure what she wanted anymore. Her gaze turned to the wall that had the map of the school on it.

"Damn them. Damn them all,” she whispered. “I’ll have my way, I will...” Her gaze shifted to the lower drawer of one of her filing cabinets. “You’ll see. Both of you, you’ll see, damn you," she finished.

Her hands balled into fists.

Less than a minute later, Julie sat up. Quickly wiping her cheeks dry, she began shuffling back through some of the papers that had been holding her attention less than an hour ago.

***

Luci walked up the driveway of Frank's house feeling equal measures of confidence and anxiety. The anxiety annoyed her; Frank's house wasn't currently being watched, Frank was (probably) home, and Carrie was (probably) not around. There was no logical reason to be nervous.

Unless you factored in how this was liable to be more than a random study session... with someone two years her senior. Shaking her head in annoyance at her own inner turmoil, Luci rang the doorbell.

Frank's father answered the door. Luci elected to wait by the doorway as he went to call upstairs for his son. When Frank appeared, he looked a little tired - no surprise - and maybe even a little worried. Though his expression cleared when he saw her.

"Luci,” Frank said in greeting. "Er, what brings you by here? Were we supposed to talk math?”

"No Frank," Luci said. She checked to make sure neither of his parents were within hearing range before continuing. "I'm here to discuss the time machine with you."

Chapter 31: Part 16a: And Logical Mind

Summary:

Luci explains to Frank how she knows about the time machine, with a glimpse into how the return trip from 1955 with Carrie played out. Luci then offers to help him with his work.

"Uh... time machine?" Frank answered uncertainly. His dad had returned to the sitting room and his mom was in the kitchen, but he kept his voice down regardless.

"Yes," Luci stated. "And please don't bother trying to cover it up. I overheard you discussing it with Carrie a few hours ago."

"A few hours ago? But..." Frank stopped. Could Luci have been hiding near the library records room?

"Having trouble remembering where you were a few hours ago?" Luci inquired, half-smiling. “It’s fine, I was yielding to your own time continuity. A few hours ago for you and Carrie, it was late August. One month ago. Now, while you're obviously feeling a bit time lagged after having been then, and in the 1950s before that, I'd appreciate being able to see your data on the time machine before this day is out?"

"Ah."

Frank decided he couldn't be feeling more off balance had Luci simply shoved him down onto the floor. Well, at least she hadn’t opted for that literal option, the way Carrie would have.

"Luci, why don't you come down to my lab?" he finally offered.

***

A little over a month ago, in the ravine out back of Carrie's house, two teenagers were arguing.

“Admit it Frank, you screwed up," the blonde insisted. “Could happen to anyone. Late August, late September, easy mistake. Granted, annoying as all hell, better not happen again..."

“Carrie, I’m telling you, I set the circuits for... wait, of course. I know what happened," Frank realized. "Remember how this machine has an inherent random element to it? We're not so much setting a date as rigging the game. And this time, we didn't hit the jackpot.”

He rubbed his chin.

“Honestly, I'm a bit surprised it hasn't happened more often. Maybe I’m getting better at setting it. Or the odds are more in our favour than I figured."

Carrie rolled her eyes. "Oh, GREAT. Any MORE good news?”

"Carrie, I - we - are still trying to understand this machine," Frank reminded her with a sigh. "It's not possible to have time travel down to a fine science in the span of a week.”

"No kidding. Still can't pick an arrival time, still seem to have no clue about the geography..."

"Wait, did you hear something?"

"Don't interrupt. And now, even some of the stuff we supposedly knew, we still can't control?" Carrie groused. “Frank, I’m sorry to go off on you here, but we can’t keep doing this. Have you noticed how this is messing with my circadian rhythms? And presumably yours too?”

She paused, as if to verify whether he understood, then continued.

“Today I woke up, spent a few hours in the present, spent four hours tooling around in '55, back to the present for over three hours researching in the library, followed by another four hours or so in the past. Now we're doomed to spend more time in August while the machine charges. I'm going to need supper and sleep when we reach the present, no matter what actual time of day it is whenever we get there.”

"Well what do you want me to say?" Frank shot back in exasperation. “It was your idea to go back to '55 again."

"Yeah. Well... the good we did there is starting to feel more like a hassle,” Carrie decided. “Paradox be damned, how come our future selves haven't at least come back from sometime in December to tell us more? It’s so irresponsible of us."

“Has it occurred to you that it’s because we’ll run out of present day coins before December?”

Carrie’s gaze snapped back to him. “No,” she admitted, her voice tight. “How many more do we have?”

Frank ran a hand back through his hair. He wished he hadn’t brought that up. “Ten,” he admitted. “Actually, nine, thanks to this detour. Unless you have more?”

“How many will you need for your testing?”

Frank tried not to meet her gaze. “We can probably find more by buying stuff... I got three as change this month."

“No, Frank,” Carrie reached out as if to grab his shirt, but then seemed to think better of it and pointed at him instead. “You HAVE to keep some coins around for my final trip. Mine got used up, poking those holes in your timeline theory.”

"Carrie..."

"No 'but's, Frank,” Carrie said firmly. “In fact, let me give you a deadline. Seven more days of tests, and then I’m going back. By myself if I have to.”

“Carrie.”

“I’m serious, Frank,” Carrie said. “At this rate, we'll never do anything. This is where it ends. One week."

Frank sighed. 'Perfect,' he thought to himself. 'Just perfect.'

***

Back in the present, Luci followed Frank down the stairs to his basement. “That was you I heard in the bushes back then,” he deduced.

"Of course," Luci answered. "I was sitting in the park when a flash of light caught my eye, so I went into the ravine to investigate. Granted, I couldn’t hear your whole conversation, and I slipped away once Carrie started rattling off ‘Barenaked Ladies’ tunes, but I caught enough to be able to piece the rest together over time.”

Frank rubbed the side of his head. "Just how much DO you know?"

"I know that you and Carrie recently came into possession of a time machine," Luci began. "It had already happened by the math test a couple Fridays back, given your reactions to each other on that day. Moreover, when I called your house that evening, I was told that Carrie was there. On a hunch, I then phoned her house, and she answered. Meaning at least one Carrie was out of her proper time."

"Good catch," Frank said, looking startled.

"Simple logic," Luci countered. "You two weren't even trying to cover your tracks. I then decided to come by your house last Sunday afternoon. Which is when I saw Carrie arrive with what I can only assume was the time machine. At the same time, I learned indirectly, via Clarke, that Julie was becoming interested in your activities. Which should hardly come as a surprise, given her ties with Carrie."

Frank nodded. "Yes, the... Julie angle was pointed out to me."

"If you're referring to the mysterious phone call you received, that was from me."

"What?" Frank said, startled anew.

Luci allowed herself another smile. "I used electronics to simulate a male voice. I wanted to warn you about Julie without involving myself directly. Which seems silly, until you realize that the conversation I’d heard was still to come in your future. A future where I hadn't been mentioned, so I didn’t want to risk a possible time paradox."

"Ah! Thank goodness, someone who finally understands the danger of paradox,” Frank said, letting out a sigh of relief. "Except... wait, if that was you on the phone, do you know anything about a shady man in some woods two years ago?"

Luci stared. "Pardon?"

Frank shook his head. "Never mind, another puzzle which I thought had been connected to the call - guess not. Okay, so what made you realize that today was the day to come and tell me all of this in person?"

"A simple matter of figuring out when that August incident would catch up with you," Luci explained. “I already knew, based on some of what Carrie had been saying, that it would occur on a late September day when you both spent some time in the library. Observation and occasional discussion with Lee and the librarians revealed today as being that date. Hence I waited until I was reasonably sure you'd already taken your time trip to the ‘50s, and come to you now before any other time puzzles can turn up to complicate matters."

"Luci, you amaze me," Frank concluded. "You know, with your ability to deduce all of this, it's surprising that you can still have occasional difficulty with your academics.”

Luci hesitated, deciding to sidestep that comment. “So, you currently have a problem. Several problems, really. And I’d like to help you out with them, unless you have an objection.”

Frank nodded slowly. “A fresh perspective on all this might be exactly what we need. Though I should really consult with Carrie before I say anything."

Luci felt the side of her mouth twitch. "Carrie's probably busy with cheer stuff, she wouldn't understand our technical details, and I seem to recall her saying something to you about a deadline,” she fired back.

"Er, well, true," Frank replied. "But all the same, she did find the machine and introduce me to the situation two years ago... plus she has a personal stake in this."

"Wait, HOW long ago?" Luci said, for the first time caught truly unawares. Her mind raced to compensate. "But that means... no, of course, that makes more sense now," she continued, vocalizing her thoughts. "She didn't go to you because you had been researching time travel. You'd been researching time travel because of a past encounter with her."

"Essentially," Frank admitted. “Is our connection becoming that obvious?”

“Only if you’re paying attention. But it won't be long before even casual observers notice that something's up. Carrie's acting different. You're acting different. What was up with that evasive act you pulled in the hall last Thursday?"

"Oh. That technically wasn't me," Frank said sheepishly. "I was testing the time machine later that night and it dropped me back right in the middle of the school. I was lucky it was a few seconds before the bell signifying class change, as opposed to after, otherwise someone could have seen me arrive."

"But you can't keep relying on luck that way,” Luci protested. "Otherwise, sooner or later, someone else is going to work out what's going on.”

Frank spread his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. "There's not much I can do about that. We're only in Grade 11, Luci... heck, age wise you should be in Grade 9. We’re not equipped to understand the technical details of a futuristic time machine at a glance. We need more data. Unless you’re suggesting we get some adults involved?"

"Not necessarily. But I gather that some of your time traveling problems are due to an inability to set direct co-ordinates in space-time?”

"Er, yeah..."

"Then why not integrate your own clock and map into the device?"

Chapter 32: Part 16b: And Logical Mind

Summary:

Luci makes a case for Frank to reveal the time machine to her, as Julie considers getting her hands on it as well. We end with an unexpected introduction.

"I can't integrate new circuits into a device I don't understand in the first place,” Frank objected. “I might blow the whole thing up.”

"Possible," Luci conceded. "But I don't think that will happen if we take precautions. Think about it.”

“What, you think someone might be keeping an eye on us to intercede?”

“No, I mean most good programmers have some sort of error handling in their applications. So that when a particularly stupid, or at least ignorant user tries to use their system in the wrong way, the entire program doesn't become corrupted."

“That’s a software thing. This is more of a hardware thing.”

Luci shrugged. "I don't see why the situation can't be a parallel. Making our own circuits will even prove less risky in the long run, as more control will allow you to avoid startling people by appearing out of nowhere.”

She drew in a deep breath.

“Also, no offense intended, but if you execute a program twenty times without understanding it, why do you think you’re any more likely to understand on the twenty-first execution?"

"I guess there's that.” Frank smiled. “Sound logic. But, do you really think it's possible to integrate a map into the device?"

"I won't know that until I see it up close,” Luci pointed out. "Besides, a clock would be safer to attempt at first."

"How do you figure?"

“Again, think. We're already dealing with time, so it shouldn't be too hard to pin down more specific co-ordinates. Whereas spatially, our Earth is spinning. It's also rotating around the sun. Our galaxy rotates, taking our solar system along with it. The galaxy moves through the universe. Where we were at 8am last month probably isn't even remotely close to where we are now. Hence if the device is somehow targeting our town, we don’t want to mess with that.”

Frank opened and closed his mouth. "Good lord," he finally remarked. "Of course, you're absolutely right. That never occurred to me." He peered more closely at her. "Luci, you've been giving this serious thought all month, haven't you."

"Well, yes," Luci admitted. She could hardly deny that at this point. "I mean, I'd hate for something bad to happen to you while you're fooling around with this thing."

Frank continued to stare at her, surprise and admiration on his face, and Luci realized her cheeks were becoming warm. The anxiety she'd felt approaching Frank's house was back.

"Look, uh, the time machine then?" she requested quickly, tugging idly on the end of one of her twin ponytails.

Frank looked upstairs, then over to a sheet in the corner of the room. "Oh, sure, why not," he relented. "You seem to have earned as much."

He walked over to the sheet, pulling it away to reveal what had to be the time device.

"As long as you don’t let this work interfere with your school studies,” he insisted. “You know, I’ve always thought that if you were to apply yourself a little more, you could significantly improve your grades, despite your age. Even get them as high as mine.”

Again with the grades. Luci opened her mouth to indicate that she didn't want to improve her marks, that she didn’t want to be seen as smart, that she was tired of not fitting in anywhere.

Her age, her intelligence, her ethnicity, all of it singling her out, isolating her from so-called normal people... it was only with effort that she curbed her natural desire to be blunt. She took in a deep breath instead.

"I'll keep that in mind," she heard herself say feebly.

Frank set the black box time machine out on his lab table, then glanced over at the clock on the wall. "We've got enough time for me to cover the basics. You can always come back tomorrow."

"Right," Luci acknowledged, tearing her gaze away from Frank and over to the table. She worked at reestablishing her sense of inner calm. "What have you learned so far?"

***

Julie ran her hands back through her hair before leaning her forehead in against a filing cabinet.

She had figured on there being two reasonable ways of dealing with a time machine. The first being to somehow get it away from Frank and Carrie, and hence remove their advantage from them.

Julie had effectively rejected that plan.

After all, even assuming that she could get her hands on their device - which seemed unlikely given how any intelligent owner should have the ability to see that coming - would she be able to understand it? Her grades were good, but not that good.

And before she could destroy the thing, some Frank or Carrie in another time period would likely try to reclaim it. Worse, they would have to do so by targeting her directly, rather than indirectly, as seemed to be the current situation. She didn’t need those sorts of complications.

Which brought Julie to the second way of dealing with this information, namely using its existence to her own advantage, instead of allowing the advantage to be theirs.

“That’s feasible,” she murmured, trying to reassure herself. “It’s easier to predict reactions, over actions. Particularly for Carrie.”

She could do this.

Julie pushed her way back off the filing cabinet, reflecting briefly upon the selection of Frank as her first "sacrifice" of the year, to flex her control. The choice had been arbitrary; if she'd decided to go after someone else, would all of this have happened?

Then again, had Frank been setting her up all along, by annoying Carrie? Was she even now playing into his hands??

‘Stop,’ Julie thought. ‘Second guessing to THAT extent is the direction of madness.’ She turned and looked back down at the table, at the rough revisions she’d made. Her one year timeline, compressed down into one month.

It would work. With Carrie’s allegiances in doubt, Tori Veniti would be the key. By involving him and his twin sister in just the right way, the guy would almost certainly set out on an all out attack.

Julie grimaced. On the one hand, she hated going that far. There would probably also need to be an ultimatum, something she had really hoped to avoid. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

These last two years, they couldn’t have been for nothing.

Julie left her play room and went back upstairs - she could deal with the finer details of her plan later. Neither Jeeves nor Mimi seemed to be about; the silence in the big house was almost oppressive.

She made her way to the kitchen and pulled Mimi's meatloaf out of the fridge, where she'd asked the household maid/cook to leave it a few hours ago. Popping the dish into the microwave, Julie sank down into a stool at the kitchen counter and finally allowed herself to relax somewhat.

‘What if you fail?’

That annoying thought took the opportunity to fully assert itself. After all, failure was always a possibility where Tori was concerned.

Interestingly, at that point, Julie realized that she might as well try to obtain the time machine. By any means necessary. Because while mucking about in one's own history sounded rather reckless and foolhardy, it would surely beat staying in the present.

Besides, Frank and Carrie were messing with history now, and they didn’t seem to be experiencing any side effects. Not that they’d ever go as far as she would...

‘Okay,’ Julie reasoned. ‘I will expend some effort in an attempt to learn more about the time travel device. Should that be possible, without stretching myself too thin.’

Julie abruptly realized that the microwave had been beeping at her for the last several minutes and she hurried to rescue her dinner.

***

Luci walked home, lost in thought. She could see now why Frank had been reluctant to add anything to the inner workings of the time machine. It WAS a rather complex piece of machinery.

The more complete back-story he had given her worried her to some extent too. Were there mysterious people from the future observing them? Or could secret government agents be keeping tabs on things?

Setting that aside for the moment, Luci was reasonably certain that - with Frank’s help - she could incorporate more reliable circuitry into the device. That would solve a lot of the existing problems. Meaning, as long as nothing terribly unexpected happened in the next little while...

"Luci," gasped a voice from ahead.

The young girl looked up as she approached her house. Another teenager stood there, wearing many colourful bows in her pink hair, along with a multi-coloured dress to match. What didn’t match was the worried expression upon her face.

"Chartreuse?" Luci countered, more than a bit surprised.

Aside from being in the same homeroom, the two of them never spent any time together. For good reason. Their personalities were hardly compatible.

Chartreuse wasn’t the sort of person who wanted to be normal. She had mystic ties, a peculiar way of speaking, and a recent rumour had even pegged her as being romantically into women. Not that there was anything wrong with that lifestyle, in Luci’s mind, but it was yet another thing that made the pink-haired girl stand out.

Chartreuse took a step forwards, absently fingering the little meditation crystal hanging around her neck.

"Luci," she repeated a bit nervously, a tinge of fear evident in her voice. "I’ve sensed that there is a war coming.” She paused dramatically. "And I think I'll, like, need your help to deal with it.”

Notes:

For anyone wondering whether "Supernatural Elements" was tagged simply for some offhanded reference to the Bermuda Triangle... hello, Chartreuse. They've been waiting patiently for your arrival.

Chapter 33: Part 17a: Observer Effect

Summary:

Chartreuse has recruited Luci and Tim to learn how the Julie-Carrie-Tori situation is unfolding, even as Carrie tries to convince herself nothing's changing.

In a corner of the high school library sat a young girl with short, dark hair, alongside an older, more heavyset girl with bright pink hair done up in braids and bows. Neither spoke.

The former finally looked up from her book. "Maybe he's not coming?"

"He'll be here," Chartreuse assured, holding a small crystal up to the light.

Luci shook her head and resumed her reading. There was still a good twenty minutes left in their lunch, it might as well be productive.

About five minutes later, a sad-looking blonde student entered the library, hesitated, then walked up to the two girls. Both looked up at him expectantly.

"I-I-I-It..." The boy paused to clear his throat. "It's tonight. Julie's making her move tonight at the d-dance."

"Excellent," Chartreuse declared, slapping her palm against the table with enough force to make Luci jump. "This means we will be, like, ready for her.”

“How so?” Luci objected. "I already speculated on Julie taking some action at the dance when you came to me last weekend. All Tim’s done is confirm it. We still don't know what she's doing. Unless you have additional information?" she asked, looking back at the blonde boy.

Their newest companion dropped his gaze to the floor. “N-No. Clarke didn't give d-details.”

Chartreuse sighed. "Luci, stop giving off these negative vibes," she observed. "Otherwise it'll be real difficult for us to function as a unit here, you know?"

“All I mean is there's no way to be ready,” Luci said defensively. “Like we weren't ready on Tuesday when Tori started up that rumour that Julie carries a teddy bear around with her."

"But we couldn't, like, anticipate that one," Chartreuse protested. "I mean, who knew that Julie would leave a stuffed animal in her backpack where Tori could see it?"

"B-But isn’t that the kinda thing you normally foresee?" Tim broke in. "Using your, um, psychic abilities?"

Chartreuse shook her head, starting to absently roll the crystal she was holding around in her hand. “Rumours get me wrong. My visions don't work like that unless I, like, get into serious meditation. I usually get random impressions from people. Like how I did from Tori last Saturday.”

“An impression relating to an upcoming 'war'," Luci remarked dryly.

"Look, I was visiting Laurie, brushed by her brother in the hallway, and POW." Chartreuse made an expressive hand gesture to demonstrate. "There it was, this, you know, real bad sensation relating to him, Julie and Carrie.”

"Tori and Julie have never gotten along."

“Luci, this was more than that,” Chartreuse insisted, genuine fear creeping back into her voice. “Julie and Carrie have never been at odds, yet that was there too. I wish I could be more specific, but I can’t. It was like, whoa, we're coming to a crossroads, and if we don't do anything, the consequences could be disastrous.”

She slapped the table again.

“War is, you know, the only way I can think to describe it. Trust me, it's up to the three of us to do something to prevent that scenario.”

Luci took a moment to reflect.

She would have written it off as stupid mystic mumbo-jumbo by Chartreuse - if it weren't for the fact that, due to the time machine, she had been paying additional attention to Carrie.

Some of what Chartreuse was saying had a ring of truth to it.

The Julie-Carrie relationship was being strained. Exactly the sort of thing that Tori Veniti would take advantage of. For that matter, the teddy bear situation this week had been uncharacteristically sloppy of Julie.

Was it due to distraction? Had it been a harbinger of things to come? Would today’s dance truly be a turning point?

“W-Why us?" Tim asked, breaking Luci’s concentration.

"Oh, that was laid out in the stars,” said Chartreuse brightly, the fear in her voice vanishing. "After all, I'm friends with Laurie, who's Tori's sister. Tim, you're friends with Clarke, who's close to Julie, sorta. And Carrie never sticks around anyone for more than a month... but I heard last week that Frank was, you know, helping her with some math, and Luci, you've also studied with Frank, so you might come across something. That makes us the two degrees of separation group."

Chartreuse paused.

"Hey, that's kind of a neat name. Maybe we should, like, make it an official club. Even create a logo?"

"B-But surely others would be a better choice."

Chartreuse shook her head. "Tim, don't look so worried. We can hang out naturally, because we’re all in the same homeroom. Also, you two are, you know, pretty inconspicuous normally, so.... Ohh. How about 2DEGS as a passcode or something?"

"We’re straying from the point," Luci observed.

"Right," Chartreuse said, switching tracks without missing a beat. "So, we now know positively that Julie's gonna do something tonight at the dance. Which will involve Tori. Or Carrie. Actually, I bet both of them. To stop it, we’ll make casual inquiries there, keep an eye out, and above all, keep calm so that we can head this thing off at the pass.”

Luci frowned. “I won’t be at the dance," she objected. "They're... not my thing."

Besides, she'd had some hopes of being able to look more into the time machine situation at Frank's house. She felt like they were making progress with the new circuitry.

"I wasn’t going to go either," Tim chimed in quietly.

Chartreuse's face fell. "Guys... I, like, totally need you there. The school needs you there. And I mean, how about your friends, Clarke, and Frank? You don't want them getting, you know, dragged into the coming apocalypse, do you?"

Luci rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. Chartreuse was visibly overdramatizing. And yet... there was still that ring of truth.

What was Julie really up to? For that matter, observing her at the dance might end up helpful for Frank.

She bit her lower lip and exchanged a quick glance with Tim. His expression implied that he was leaving the decision up to her.

"I... the dance starts at 8, right?" Luci said in resignation.

Chartreuse beamed. "That's the spirit. Whatever Julie has in mind, she can't have factored in the actions of the 2DEGS.”

She thrust her hand out enthusiastically towards her companions. Off of her expectant look, they placed their palms on top of hers.

"Go team," Chartreuse said cheerily.

***

"Go team," cheered Carrie along with others from her squad. "Defense, defense, take that ball away."

The point was moot. Even if they could get the ball back, it was unlikely that they'd be able to score the necessary 10 points for a win in the last two minutes of the game. But hey, there was something to be said for enthusiasm, particularly on away games.

Carrie even wagered that her handful of members was doing a better job than the home squad; certainly their uniforms were better.

“Will we be doing another lift?" inquired the boy next to her.

Carrie shook her head. "Nah, no point, Steve. Things are winding down and we don't want to show up the home team TOO much, do we?" She winked.

Steve fired back a grin of his own. "I guess not. Good thing for their sake that we didn’t bring a full complement."

Carrie nodded. It was fortunate that a couple of their guys had been able to make it out here, they were involved in a few of the best routines.

‘I wonder what their incentive was?' Carrie thought to herself with a smirk, raising a hand to her hip and shifting her weight to make it jut out saucily.

She wondered if Steve was still watching her. It occurred to her that if he was, he was probably thinking that she was behaving like mere eye candy.

That thought irritated her. She was more than that, right?

Sure. She was also egotistical, needing to have everything go her way.

Carrie resumed her prior position, feeling betrayed by her own thoughts. What the hell was wrong with her lately? She had to stop talking with Frank. Except she couldn’t do that; she needed him.

Which was a weird feeling, that need.

Being popular, she’d seen people within cliques as being interchangeable. There had been no need to focus on the individuals, beyond what they could do for her. After all, no one had ever cared about her, so why should she do more than pretend to care about anyone else in turn?

Now, because of the time machine, it wasn’t like that any more. She truly needed Frank.

Carrie grimaced. The more she thought about her situation, the more she hated thinking about her situation. So when the final game whistle blew, she shunted those thoughts to the back of her mind.

Sure enough, their team had lost another one; Coach Masterson would be beside himself.

As the players gathered together for a post-game briefing or whatever it was they did, Carrie motioned for her small squad to join the other spectators from their school, returning to their chartered bus.

Their bus was separate from the one the football team used; it was funded through selling tickets to interested fans and spectators, with the incentive being a chance to root for their team, as well as get out of last period class.

Granted, the bus hadn't been completely filled, however, Julie had indicated to both Carrie and the athletic department that she could pick up some of the slack, if necessary. It was handy having a rich friend on your side.

The voice in her head poked at her again.

What was the deal with Julie? She’d been acting different this past week. Their lunchtime conversations had changed in tone. Carrie was doing most of the talking, and that hadn’t always been the case. Had it?

Then there was the whole teddy bear thing.

Carrie was certain that Julie had never carried such a stuffed animal with her, and had decried Tori's claims of such. Yet Julie had hardly reacted at all to the accusation, and she’d only allowed a visible inspection of her backpack the day AFTER the incident.

What was the deal? Was Julie up to something?

‘Stop overreacting,’ Carrie ordered herself. ‘Anyway, Julie’s mood will improve after I’ve passed on her suggestion to Laurie.’

Taking a seat near the front of the bus, Carrie waved off a couple of requests by people to sit next to her, instead motioning to a member of her cheerleading squad who was the same age.

The girl with shoulder-length red hair and freckles turned to look behind herself in confusion as Carrie beckoned. It took another few seconds for Laurie to realize that, yes, Carrie had indeed meant her.

The redhead finally slid into the seat next to the head cheerleader.

"You really want me to sit here next to you?" Laurie asked in breathless excitement. "Golly. I mean this is... golly." She paused. "Wait, this isn't about my brother and the teddy bear thing, is it? Because I don't have any control over what Tori does, he's only my brother and besides he’s nice, he helps me out in school since as you well know I can't wrap my head around math, especially when we get into those fractions I mean that stuff is so hard that I can’t..."

"Laurie, you're babbling."

Laurie blushed lightly. "Yes Captain, sorry Captain, I'll shut up now," she said quickly, dropping her eyes down to the floor. Her hands moved to play with the hem of her cheerleading skirt.

Carrie suppressed a sigh. In some sense, Laurie’s irritatingly perky and innocent demeanour was the perfect complement to her fraternal twin's more sour, jaded outlook on life. Yet in another sense, Carrie couldn't understand how the two siblings managed to live in the same house together.

"Laurie, I don't want to talk to you about the whole bear thing," Carrie assured. "But I do want to talk briefly about your brother."

Laurie raised her eyes back up. "What about him?"

Chapter 34: Part 17b: Observer Effect

Summary:

Carrie sets the stage for a showdown at the dance, as we get our first good look at Julie's school rival, Tori.

"I've heard that Tori’s been trying to start up an ensemble band at school,” Carrie prompted.

"Oh, good golly, yes," Laurie said, now nodding eagerly. “Of course he's already in the regular band and the choir too but you don't get to sing in the band or play in the choir, so he was thinking of trying to get some people interested in a small ensemble only there hasn't been enough interest yet or not enough for Mrs. Willis to shell out any money for music, besides my brother mostly plays flute and keyboards so he obviously can't be a one man band which is sort of a shame because I think it's a really great idea, don't you?"

Carrie could swear that, despite a semblance of commas, Laurie had never taken a breath through all that. The blonde stopped biting her tongue long enough to speak up again.

"Sure. In fact, hey, we're having a dance tonight, right? Tori could use it to spark more interest in his ensemble, by singing a song or two."

Laurie blinked. "Huh? I don't follow."

Carrie mentally added another checkmark next to the times she’d felt like physically shoving someone, but was able to resist.

”If Tori were to sing a few songs at the dance," Carrie explained patiently, "Others might be more interested in joining a band with him. Right?"

"Ohh." Laurie seemed to reflect on that. "That's a pretty good idea,” she decided.

"Yes," Carrie concluded, leaning back in her seat with a sigh. "I thought so." Or rather, Julie had thought so, being the one to propose the plan.

Julie had indicated that, if Tori pulled off his whole ensemble thing, he would probably become too busy to bother her. Plus it would take attention away from the teddy bear rumours now circulating. That last seemed a bit optimistic, but Julie always seemed to know what she was doing, so Carrie wasn't about to start second guessing now.

"I think I'll mention that to my brother," Laurie added brightly.

"You do that," Carrie indicated.

"You're all right, you know that?" Laurie continued. "I mean, sure, things got off to a rocky start between us, and some people around the school say nasty things, but golly, stories like that always get blown out of proportion, plus lots of the people are Tori's friends so they only say mean things about you because you hang around with Julie so you can't totally believe them. What I mean to say is I always knew that deep down you were an okay gal and I just want to say again I'm really pleased that you're letting me sit next to you here, don't think that I'm unaware of the honour involved."

"Laurie..."

"Yes, Captain?"

"PLEASE stop babbling," Carrie said, flexing her hands.

"Golly, sorry again, you’re right, I’ll do that, definitely I will, you just watch me now, here I go," she affirmed, reaching once more for the hem of her skirt.

Carrie found herself praying that they would manage the rest of the trip home without further outbursts.

'I think Julie owes me for this favour,' she reflected. 'She reeeeeeeally owes me for this one.'

***

The dart flew through the air, striking Julie between the eyes. Or that's where it hit in Tori's mind anyway, as he'd mentally projected her smirking face onto the dart board.

“What. Is. Your. Deal?” he muttered for what felt like the thousandth time since their first encounter.

Tori reached up to brush some of his shoulder-length red hair back off his ear. He preferred to keep it the same length and style as his sister, not because of any real concession to them being twins, so much as the occasional confusion (and amusement) it afforded him when one of them was viewed from behind.

He could still remember the time last year when that football player had been incessantly hitting on Laurie. No one did that to his sister. So, Tori had given the guy the opportunity to corner her for a date - only to discover in the moment that he'd cornered Tori instead.

Tori smiled. He had engineered that flawlessly, and the expression on the guy's face when he'd discovered the switch had been priceless.

The date hadn't been bad either, if you liked that sort of thing. Not that Tori swung that way, but a deal was a deal - he hadn’t let the guy squirm his way out of the invitation. Besides, it helped to project a vibe of tolerance to other lifestyles, which was something he wanted in the school.

If only Julie was as easy to manipulate.

Julie. Tori flung another dart at the board. The girl who required that everything work out HER way. Such arrogance.

Of course, the real annoying thing was how Tori rather preferred to have things go HIS way. But not all the time, like her. Only half the time. Maybe up to three quarters of the time. Then occasionally 90% of the time.

Tori grimaced. Fine. Maybe he had taken that initial dislike to Julie because he'd sensed some of his more questionable qualities in her. He threw his final dart.

His bedroom door opened and his sister stuck her head in, knocking as she did so. "Laurie, no," Tori shouted out in warning.

The redheaded girl flinched as the dart whistled by her face and embedded itself in the dartboard hanging by the doorframe. "Golly," she remarked, peering at the dart's final resting place with a stunned look.

Tori exhaled. "Damn it little sis, how many times do I have to tell you, knock first, THEN open the door, not both at the same time?"

Laurie looked back at her brother. "It wasn't locked," she replied petulantly. "And don't get into the little sister thing with me again. You're only two minutes older."

Tori rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine," he grumbled. He didn't really feel like arguing. He moved to retrieve his darts, deciding to find a better place for the board. "Then what's so all fired important that you felt it risked putting an eye out?"

"Oh, it's a great idea concerning the dance and your proposed band ensemble,” Laurie said, clasping her hands. She briefly - or briefly for his sister - outlined the idea, and its origins.

"I see," Tori responded dubiously. "Carrie mentioned this, did she? She wouldn’t do that for no reason. Did Julie factor into it?"

"I didn't think to ask," Laurie realized. She frowned marginally. “Julie can’t be up to something involving you again, can she?"

"I don't know," Tori admitted.

The main reason Julie was on his mind now was due to the 'teddy bear affair'; she might want to get back at him for it.

Tori supposed he could have employed a little more tact and restraint in his remarks. But damn, taking Julie down a peg or two this past week had sure felt good.

"Maybe you shouldn't come to the dance tonight," Tori decided. "If she is up to anything, I don't want you involved."

"Aw, geez, Toriiiiii," Laurie protested. “It's the first dance of the school year and the first major social event not counting Julie's party which we can't really count seeing as we weren't invited, plus Chartreuse is expecting me there and I recently got this cool new pair of shoes that I was planning to wear, besides I can take care of myself so just because YOUR silly feuds are hinting at trouble it doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to go and have a good time.”

"Okay, okay, enough already,” Tori said, raising his hands in resignation. "Do whatever you like then, see if I care."

Julie wouldn't stoop so low as to use his sister against him anyway. He was getting paranoid.

Laurie hmmphed and turned away, though she turned back a moment later. "So, will you sing at tonight's dance?"

Tori pursed his lips. It was a good idea. "I'm not sure," he concluded, looking down at the dart in his fingers. "I'll decide when I get there."

***

In a dark basement room, the final touches were put on a small device, before it was slipped into a jacket pocket. The device’s owner smiled. So far, everything seemed to be going according to plan.

Chapter 35: Part 18a: Dance Dance Revolution

Summary:

At the dance, Chartreuse and her group try to assess the situation. More romantic interests between characters are revealed. Then, Tori makes an announcement.

"Luci, I didn't expect to see you here.”

She had known where to find him. As a member of the school business club, Frank had volunteered to help man the coat check/concession booth once again this year.

"You don't normally come to dances, do you?"

"No," Luci admitted. "They're not my thing. I'd much rather be at your place."

Frank stared. "My place?"

"Oh, I don’t mean... that is, it’s to do with... you know," Luci attempted to clarify, glad no one else was in earshot. “Don’t think that I... that is, to change the subject, I wanted to know if Carrie said anything to you recently about Julie?"

Frank shook his head. "No. Should she have?"

"No. Maybe not. Never mind. I'll see you later," Luci finished, turning and hurrying away.

She knew she was blushing now and she hated herself for it. It was hardly appropriate. She found herself wishing, not for the first time, that she could be a couple of years older.

"What was that about?" Joe Drew asked, returning to the counter next to Frank after hanging up a jacket.

Frank shrugged at his fellow business club member. "Nothing. Luci being herself," he remarked.

***

On the other side of the cafeteria (cleared of benches and tables for the dance), Lee leaned up against the wall next to Chartreuse.

"Sooooo, glitter girl, feel up to a dance?" he inquired with a grin. He tugged on the lapels of his well-worn jacket, then gestured towards the middle of the room, where a handful of people were swaying in time to the beat.

Chartreuse adjusted the straps of her sparkling green gown. “I appreciate the ask, but maybe later?" she said with a half smile.

Lee snapped his fingers and pointed towards her. "Gotcha," he confirmed with a wink. He immediately turned away as a couple other girls passed by. "Ladies? Care to dance?" he inquired, following them.

Chartreuse then turned her attention to Luci and Tim as they approached. “Okay guys,” she whispered excitedly, still managing to be audible over the music that had started up nearly a half hour ago. "Any news?"

Luci shook her head. Tim merely shifted his weight back and forth uncomfortably.

"Tim?" Chartreuse prompted encouragingly.

Tim ran a hand back through the soft curls of his blonde hair. "I-I-I haven't talked with Clarke since this afternoon. Sorry. He's seemed more worried about Julie than usual. I didn't want to upset him."

"No news then," Luci summarized. She sighed, feeling very conspicuous in her T-Shirt and jeans next to Chartreuse’s sequinned outfit. "This is silly. We shouldn't have come. There's always next week."

Or if it really came down to it, convincing Frank to use the time machine as a more effective alternative.

"No, no, this is the turning point," the pink-haired girl insisted, reaching out to clasp Luci’s hand. "We must do this, for the good of everyone.”

A familiar murmur ran through the crowd, and Chartreuse looked up.

“Ooh. Sounds like Tori and Laurie are, like, here now. That should provide a clue. How about you two dance together or something while I check it out?"

She smiled brightly at them and ran off.

Luci exchanged a glance with Tim. He was approximately the same height as her, despite their age difference. "I don't dance," she said quickly.

"Yeah, me neither," Tim echoed. “Uh, medical reasons.” There was a pause, then the two teenagers leaned back against the wall next to each other.

***

"Chartreuse,” Laurie said happily, catching sight of her friend exiting the cafeteria. "Golly, you look great, that dress really suits you though you know you don't have to dress up for these things, it's not like they're formals, except of course I bought new shoes so who am I to say anything anyway and we're probably not the only ones to do stuff like that, so at any rate who's all here and have you danced with anyone yet?"

As Laurie and Chartreuse moved off together, Tori reached into his pocket and flipped a loonie to one of the guys standing near the doors.

"Hey, Tommy," he remarked. "Go buy me a pop, would you? The usual."

Tommy willingly went inside to purchase the item in question as Tori turned his attention to another student. "Quick, what comes to mind when I say improv singing?"

"Screw you," the student shot back sullenly.

"Mmmmm. Say 'hi' to Julie for me, would you? I do hope she's 'bearing' up," Tori concluded.

No hesitation, no smugness in that guy's tone; if Julie had plans against him, the news hadn't filtered down to some of her more well known supporters. Tori hadn't really expected it to, but it never hurt to check.

He proceeded into the cafeteria himself.

***

Larry Fisk monitored Tori’s arrival with a sour expression on his face. Kids these days, the science teacher mused. Hard to tell what they were getting up to half the time. But Tori Veniti and Julie LaMille? They were the worst.

Of course, given their place in the social hierarchy, few other students risked doing anything that might annoy them – which paradoxically kept the school relatively peaceful. Meanwhile, the mutual (if guarded) respect that Tori and Julie seemed to have for each other kept their own disagreements from escalating too high.

Regardless, Larry had told the principal, Dell Hunt, that some teachers should intercede. But Dell seemed to believe that, as long as the faculty didn’t take sides, the teens would eventually work things out themselves.

Was that possible?

Larry had his doubts, and the dance chaperon knew he wouldn’t be able to keep from grimacing whenever he saw either one of the two ringleaders. It disturbed him to think about what might happen if the tenuous balance between them ever changed.

***

Inside the cafeteria, Phil Clarke was having similar misgivings.

All that he’d been able to get from Julie about the dance was that she would be taking steps towards dealing with Tori once and for all. She hadn't elaborated on how this related to her problem with Carrie and Frank. It felt like Julie was aiming for a diversionary tactic. But why?

It came back to her ultimate goals.

Clarke had never thought that figuring out why Julie was so bent on her plans would come under a time constraint, but he was realizing now that time played a factor. Ironic in a way, if Julie's claim of a time machine was true.

Scanning the room to try and otherwise occupy his mind (even if only temporarily) Clarke caught sight of Tim. That surprised him. Tim had never been one to come out to social events.

Heck, Clarke had befriended the boy after realizing how much Tim tended to be socially shunned. In retrospect, perhaps Tim's earlier question to him, regarding whether Julie was likely to do anything troublesome tonight, made some sense?

Then again, it didn't, because Clarke had admitted that there was a very good chance for something to happen. So why would Tim pick tonight as the first dance he would attend?

Clarke then noticed Luci standing next to him. Was she the reason? A date?

"Clarke?"

The tall basketball player turned to see Laurie standing next to him. "Er, yeah?”

"Would you... are you... that is, you're not dancing at the moment, but..." The redhead stopped, unable to complete her thought.

"Was I planning to?" Clarke attempted to finish for her. Laurie nodded mutely.

Her request didn't surprise him. Laurie had previously indicated an interest in him. Except, given his current ties with Julie, he couldn’t afford to be connected to Tori’s sister, even casually. Besides, the redheaded girl had a tendency to talk a lot, something Clarke had trouble dealing with.

Yet even as he tried to think of how to turn her down gently, he realized that Laurie had been curbing her babbling tendencies of late. At least around him. And Julie wasn't here yet. Could a dance be a way to help make peace?

Clarke opened his mouth to respond - when he heard the word ripple through the attendees that Julie and Carrie had arrived.

"Maybe another time," he apologized, turning to head for the cafeteria door.

"Yeah, okay, right, sure, no problem, I'm fine with that... just fine..." Laurie murmured, even after Clarke was out of earshot. Her eyes fell down to her fingers, where they began to twist around the folds of her skirt.

Chartreuse, for her part, had left Laurie in order to check in again with Luci and Tim.

"Okay guys,” she said eagerly. “Laurie told me there's, like, some singing thing which Tori might be doing tonight. That's so likely to be when Julie strikes. I think Julie's arriving now, so let's split up and give a scan of the DJ's stage area right quick.”

***

Despite the undercurrent of escalating tension, an hour and a half later, everything was still normal.

Chartreuse was baffled. "I know I'm not wrong," she murmured. "Something is starting here. I can almost, you know, sense it about to happen. But if Julie’s going to start it, how is she going to DO it?"

"Stage area's unchanged,” Luci offered up as she approached.

"Are you, like, SURE?"

"If there's one thing I'm good at," the young girl shot back. "It's observation. There’s nothing out of place.”

"Can I-I-I go now?" Tim lamented. "I haven't done any good. I can’t even talk to Clarke now that Julie’s here."

Chartreuse fell back against the wall, a frustrated look on her face. "But... we... oh, sure," she said, defeated. "Look, guys, sorry if I dragged you out here for nothing. I mean, I know I've been, like, wrong about mystic stuff before. I just never dreamed I could be this wrong."

"Your attention please," came a voice from the stage as a song wrapped up.

Everyone in the cafeteria turned to look at Tori, who was holding the microphone.

"Some of you know that I've been trying to start up a band to perform some cover songs at upcoming school events." Tori grinned. “And while you’re equally aware that I could exert some pressure to make this happen, I've been trying to acquire musical support on a voluntarily basis. After all, you'd be giving up your free time to be with me, and it’s not like I’ll be paying you, no matter how well you drum."

There was a smattering of laughter before Tori continued.

"As you may also know, I’ve declared myself the lead singer. If that’s what’s making you hesitate, I thought I'd take this opportunity to demonstrate how I'm more than a simple choir member."

He turned to say something to the DJ.

"Oh, and Julie?” he added, turning back. “If you're thinking of trying something here..." His face darkened. "Don't."

Chapter 36: Part 18b: Dance Dance Revolution

Summary:

Things go very badly at the dance.

Moments later, the tune of a relatively recent song began - karaoke version.

Tori tossed the microphone back and forth briefly between his hands before starting to sing...

~”I once wished to travel through time
To have such a power seemed really sublime
But I never imagined the problems I'd face
So now I'm lost in time and also in space.~

~I'm three days older than I was last night
Wondering if I put wrong what once went right
And I would hit rewind but time's being unkind,
Destinies intertwined now I'm losing my mind!”~

Tim lifted a brow. "He's pretty good," he noted.

"Interesting song selection," Luci murmured. She tried to remember which group had made it popular.

"Short stuff?" came the voice of Lee. "Hey, it is you. You're fast, I just saw you out in the hall."

Luci turned to Lee, feeling her heart rate increasing. "What?"

~”I can speak of tomorrow but not yesterday
For when history changes your past goes away
I altered one thing that was causing me strife
The tapestry tore changing everyone's life.
Maybe that's fine, maybe it's not,
Who draws the line, who calls the shot?”~

"I've never been able to make sense of this song," Carrie grumbled. "Pretty lame selection, huh Julie? Julie?"

Carrie was sure Julie had been within earshot a couple minutes ago. Where had her friend gone?

~”Is there some higher power involved around here?
I don't know if they helped or are something to fear.
I see now that these forces can't be understood
I'd return things to normal if only I could,
But the ramifications have damaged my brain
It won't be long now before I've gone insane.”~

"Tracked down where's that ringing's coming from then?" Joe inquired.

"Yeah, a cell phone," Frank said. “In Carrie Waterson's jacket."

"Well, answer it," Joe concluded. "It’s not going to voicemail, and whoever's calling, they don't seem to want to hang up on their own."

~"None of this should have happened, I know in my gut
Yet our future is hist'ry, and I've lost what's what.
We must now beware, time is not playing fair,
I would solve this crime it's just I'm...
outta time... outta time... outta time..."~

Tori concluded his song. There was a brief pause, then the silence was broken - not by applause, but by the voice of Laurie Veniti coming through the sound system.

"I've figured out where the test papers are,” she stated. "They're in the bottom drawer of Ms. Adams' desk in the math office which she keeps locked but Chartreuse heard from Katie that George said she keeps a spare key at the back of her pullout drawer in class in the event that she forgets her key ring because I guess it happened once a year ago and they had to force the drawer and it was a real pain and stuff but anyway that's where you can find the math tests.”

"That... that can't be me,” Laurie cried out from the back of the room, feeling the blood drain from her face.

"Oh, I won't find them there," Carrie's voice retorted through the speakers. "You will. After all, I don’t need them as much as you do. Plus you've come this far, why not prove yourself by going all the way?"

"What the hell?" Carrie gasped in response to hearing her own voice.

Laurie's voice returned. "But... I thought... it's been sort of fun to this point but to actually steal...?"

'That's pre-recorded,' Tori realized, shaking off his momentary paralysis. He spun to the DJ. "Turn off all your audio equipment,” he snapped.

"Oh, feeling a little chicken? Well, maybe your brother would be more willing to do this instead," Carrie concluded.

"No. Don't tell him about any of this. I'll... I'll take the papers if you really want..."

"SOMEONE TURN THAT GOD DAMN RECORDING OFF," Tori yelled.

The power all around the stage immediately went dead. For a moment, another complete silence descended upon the room. No one seemed to know what to say. Though many looks automatically went to a couple of specific faces.

"I never cheated," Laurie murmured. Her face was a deathly white and she seemed to be in danger of hyperventilating. "That, that was over a year ago. Okay, I... I did take a copy of the test. But I never looked at it. Never, ever. I would never... never... oh God... I... I'm so sorry."

The redhead buried her face in her hands and sprinted for the door.

"Laurie," Tori cried out from the stage.

He quickly started shoving his way through the crowd of still shocked spectators towards the back, only to find himself face to face with Carrie.

As if sensing that they were in a danger zone, everyone standing nearby immediately took two steps back.

Tori's hands balled into fists. "You and Julie have crossed the line this time," he seethed at the blonde. "Don't think you’re getting away with it.”

"You think it was MY idea to be portrayed that way to the entire school?" Carrie fired back. “I didn’t know that conversation had ever been recorded.”

“Then you admit it happened?" Tori barked. “Sounds like you’ll be spending a little extra time at home this term.”

Carrie's eyes narrowed. "If you're implying that some sort of suspension is coming my way, be aware that your sister sounded a LOT guiltier than I did.”

"Are you threatening me, Waterson?"

"You're smart, you figure it out. For that matter, you were the one up at the stage, with the equipment. How do we know you're not playing innocent here? Trying to create more trouble for me and Julie?”

"How DARE you try to pin the blame back on me,” Tori shot back, face going as red as his hair. "Waterson, best be VERY careful about what actions you take over the next few days.”

With that, Tori shoved his way past her, charging towards the door through which Laurie had exited.

***

Carrie resisted the urge to respond to Tori’s shove with a tackle, instead taking a few deep breaths before calling out, "Julie?"

She turned to look about her, finally grabbing onto the shirt of the person standing closest, decorum be damned.

"Did you see where the hell Julie went??"

The kid shook his head several times, returning the expression on Carrie's face with one of abject terror. Useless.

The blonde shoved him back out of the way, deciding she’d have to look for her friend herself. Because Tori had been right about one thing: Julie had crossed the line.

Whether Julie had been the one to play that recording, or whether it had been Tori - her friend had apparently sensed what was about to happen, and made a quick exit. However, instead of offering any warning, or even returning to back Carrie up, Julie had left her high and dry.

Carrie was not pleased by that. Not one bit.

The blonde stalked out of the cafeteria through a different set of doors than those used by Tori.

***

As murmurs began to spread through the crowd, Chartreuse could only stare in horror at the door through which the Veniti twins had departed.

"We've failed," she realized. "The 2DEGS have totally failed. Now, it’s... war."

The steadily increasing sound of student mutterings was cut off by the sound of feedback from near the stage, power having being restored.

It was followed by the voice of science teacher Larry Fisk at the microphone. "This dance," he stated, "Is over. Please clear the cafetorium as soon as possible."

***

In a dark, abandoned classroom, the brunette girl smiled to herself. She collapsed the antenna for the remote she was carrying.

It sounded like everything was working out more or less as anticipated. Thus phase one was complete: the revolution at the high school had begun.

Julie found herself shivering in anticipation, but she forced herself to stay focused. There was still work to be done... so much work to be done.

Notes:

This ends ARC 1.3: Awareness Of Her Impact. Bringing us to the final arc starting next time, 1.4: Awareness of Herself. Incidentally, I did write that song Tori sings (over 20 years ago now), though never set it to any music. Go with what fits in your head? It does have elements of things we've seen, and foreshadows ARC 2.

Chapter 37: Part 19a: Dance Dance Redux

Summary:

Carrie's father isn't pleased after the dance. Then Carrie isn't pleased, as Luci wants to join her and Frank on a time trip back to that dance.

Luci peered into the black box sitting on Frank's lab table. She smiled - being done a little ahead of schedule had meant a chance to chat with Frank this evening. They’d been so focused on their work, both Saturday and today, that there hadn't been much opportunity for idle conversation.

Then again, Luci still felt awkward whenever talk shifted to personal lives - partly because of how Frank tended to talk about Carrie. Luci wasn't quite sure what to say about that.

Why did Frank think that Carrie was anything more than the shallow persona she displayed at school? Even as Luci pondered this, the basement door opened and she heard someone coming downstairs. She looked up, reading the expression on Frank’s face.

"She's coming over then?" Luci guessed.

Frank nodded, running a hand back through his hair. "Carrie's on her way," he affirmed.

***

Several blocks away, Carrie threw on her jacket as she headed for her front door. "I'm going out, Dad," she called out in passing.

"Carrie, wait," her father requested.

The blonde poked her head back around the entrance to the living room. "Yes?" she said with thinly veiled annoyance.

Hank Waterson folded up his newspaper and set it to the side of his chair. "We still haven't discussed the matter of Friday's dance.”

Carrie sighed. "It's like I told you yesterday, there's nothing to talk about. In fact, by the end of the weekend, you'll have forgotten all about it." She smiled at her inside joke.

"Carrie, when your school calls to tell me that my daughter may have been involved in a case of cheating, this is not something I will casually dismiss.”

'Why not, you do that to everything else about me,' Carrie thought to herself.

Aloud, she responded, "Dad, please. It was almost two years ago, and they have no proof it actually happened. The whole thing's been blown out of proportion. You know how school does that with me.”

Her father hesitated. "Still, I'd hate to see something like this escalate, and damage your permanent record. I got the impression that your school contacted me to ensure that such a thing won't happen."

"It won't," Carrie asserted. "Don't worry, Dad, I know cheating is bad. Also, drugs are bad and sex is bad. I'll be a good girl, okay?"

"Carrie, be serious with me.”

"I am being serious.” Also snarky, her head voice added. Tone it down with him, for once? “Look, I'm sixteen, I can take care of myself without a lecture from you. Okay?"

Carrie attempted another smile.

"Now can I PLEASE go to Frank's house? He's expecting me. It’s math stuff." Time travel involved math, right?

Her father appeared to wrestle with this internally. "Be back by ten o'clock," he concluded.

"Ten? Since when do I have an actual curfew??"

"Since there are consequences to your actions. Ten o’clock, from today going forwards. I’m only allowing this trip at all because it’s related to your schoolwork."

"But... oh, fine," Carrie sighed, deciding to hurry for the front door rather than stay and argue.

Honestly, why did her dad even try? It was obvious he didn't care much for her, as highlighted by the fact that it took a problem like this for him to pay attention to her.

Or was it more like, for her to pay attention to him?

‘Shut up, new voice inside my head,’ Carrie thought back.

***

After the front door slammed, Hank slumped back down in his chair. He turned to look at the picture sitting on the table beside him.

"She's so much her mother's daughter," he murmured. "I don't know how to handle her, Elaine... not since she found out you wouldn’t be coming back. What would you have done if you were here? Would you have let her go? If only you could guide me somehow..."

The picture didn't answer.

He hadn't expected it to. A few minutes later, Hank retrieved his newspaper back from the floor with a sigh.

***

Frank closed up the time machine. The new circuits looked fine. Great. Now came the tricky bit. He turned to Luci.

“Okay. So. Uh, if you want to head out before Carrie gets here, that's understandable. Seeing as the two of you... haven't been getting along."

A huge understatement. He could still recall Carrie's reaction from last Monday, when he had called her over - then revealed that Luci was going to be helping out with the time machine.

"Luci??" Carrie had yelped at him. "Luci is going to be messing with the time machine? Frank, we'd agreed NOT to tell anyone about it. If this device was too much for you, you could have said so, rather than call in little miss 'I-know-so-much-that-I-skipped-grades’. I mean, what's she going to do for us, integrate a high-tech lollipop dispenser into the thing?”

All that - with Luci in the room.

Fortunately, Luci had taken it in stride, retorting, “I’d promise not to show you up, Carrie, but that would entail me doing even less than nothing."

A comment which hadn’t endeared Luci to the blonde.

It had taken Frank’s explanation, of Luci discovering the machine’s existence herself in August, along with a reminder of Carrie’s “one week deadline”, to get Carrie to capitulate.

"No, I'm going to stay," Luci now asserted. "The trip you're both planning, it's back to Friday, right?"

“Yeah,” Frank admitted, pulling himself back to the present. "After all, Carrie’s taken issue with what happened at the dance. So it’s a good a date as any to test out our new circuits.”

Luci shook her head. “Is it really? Or is that what she says? Because you don’t need to go to Friday - heck, even if Carrie somehow prevents that recording from being played, it doesn’t change what she did to Laurie in the first place.”

“I know that,” Frank assured her. “But there’s more to Carrie than how she acts.”

After all, she had... well, helped that girl Beth in 1955?

Frank ran his hand back through his hair. He was starting to wonder if his defence of Carrie was becoming more a defence of his own choice to work on time travel for the last two years.

Luci sighed. “What exactly did Carrie say to you when she came by yesterday?"

“Nothing mean. She was upset about the dance, that’s all. And about how we couldn’t use the machine yet, because we were in the process of making adjustments."

“So she showed up ONLY for the time machine,” Luci pointed out. “Can’t you see how that girl’s all take and no give? I mean, really.”

“But there’s also her unique perspective on time," Frank protested. “She sees things differently. Plus, something bad happened. In her past.”

Luci looked at him expectantly.

“It’s not my place to go into detail.” Detail that had been filtered through his younger self. Were his memories even accurate?

“Uh huh.” Luci put her hands on her hips. “Fine. Then I’m not only staying now, I’m going back in time with you both.”

Frank stared. "What?” Yet again, Luci was surprising him.

“Even setting aside how Carrie’s been manipulating you, based on past experience? I suspect neither of you have much of a plan as far as a trip to the dance goes. You could end up getting yourselves into even worse trouble. I figure someone has to be around to talk sense.”

Frank shook his head. “The dance is a familiar environment. And since I still believe that we can’t change the past, we can't get into any more trouble than we're in already."

Luci crossed her arms. “Sorry, but I’m not yet sold on your unchangeable theory about time. And even if I were, there could still be repercussions as yet unseen. So - I’m going. If you’re worrying about how to pitch it to Carrie, I’ve spent at least 24 hours fiddling with this machine over the past week. Am I saying you two owe me this trip? No... but if something goes wrong with the new circuits, it might be good if I'm there too, right?"

“That's... a fair point,” Frank conceded. He let out a long breath. "All right. We’ll see what Carrie says."

***

"No. Absolutely not.”

From her position, sitting on the lab table, Luci fought down the urge to comment. After all, it would be better for all of them if she let Frank assert himself here. Right?

"Carrie, let me finish. Luci knows more about the new--"

"So IF something comes up, we’ll give her a phone call Friday night," Carrie interrupted. "For that matter, I can do the same with you, Frank. Neither of you need bother coming. I can take this trip myself.”

“Carrie, be reasonable. You haven’t been able to set the machine by yourself yet. And you can’t paradox your way through this, I don’t remember seeing you on Friday.”

“You mean you don’t remember seeing me YET. But fine - you’re testing stuff, so you can still come. Only you.”

Frank merely sighed.

Luci could no longer hold her tongue. “Carrie," she broke in. "Do you even have the faintest idea of what you'll be doing to try and reverse things on Friday?"

"How odd. Frank, did you just hear a noise?"

"I'm right aren't I?" Luci pressed. "You probably don't even know the recording was all a plot by Julie.”

"What?" both Carrie and Frank chorused, turning to face her.

Luci looked back and forth between them. "Surely that can't come as a complete surprise to BOTH of you?" Even without the extra tip-offs through Chartreuse, Julie's involvement had seemed fairly obvious.

“It’s likely,” Frank admitted. "But I also heard some people talking as they left. They seemed to think Tori had set it up, as an attempt to regain sympathy after his unfriendly remarks about Julie's teddy bear."

"I challenged Julie about it that same night," Carrie added. "She said she left after Tori's statement to the effect of her not trying anything, figuring it would be best to just go. She didn't know he was going to play that recording of me, and she apologized for not coming to my rescue. Said she'd make it up to me somehow this week."

Luci boggled. “Carrie - are you actually that stupid?"

"Now you listen here, little girl..."

“Carrie, stop,” Frank said, stepping between the two of them. “Please? Let’s all be civil about this? Please?” His uncertain gaze went from Carrie back to Luci. When neither of them spoke, he ventured, “Now, Luci, why do you say it wasn't Tori?"

"Because of how it involved his sister," Luci answered easily. "Tori doesn’t show it overtly, but he's very protective of her. Remember that whole mismatched date thing he set up last year? He'd never hurt Laurie the way that recording did. And once you eliminate him, it's down to Julie. With the possible exception of one other person."

"Ha. So it could be this other phantom person and not Julie?" Carrie challenged.

"Yes,” Luci yielded. She took in a deep breath. “But that other person is you, Carrie."

Chapter 38: Part 19b: Dance Dance Redux

Summary:

Carrie, Frank and Luci get emotional, then return to the dance. Can they change events? Or will they be foiled by having to evade the presence of their other selves...

"What?" Carrie and Frank chorused again, Carrie adding a "how DARE you imply such a thing."

Luci sighed. “Oh my God, you two. Think about it, seriously. Who led the outcry against Tori all last week regarding the teddy bear? Carrie. Who had the most opportunity to record the Carrie/Laurie conversation we heard? Carrie. Who had words with Tori immediately following the incident? Carrie. Who is the most mean spirited cheerleader on the face of the Earth?”

“Luci,” Frank gasped.

“Nope, not me. I bet Carrie was even the one who suggested karaoke to Tori. Am I right?”

“Okay Luci, enough.”

It was Frank’s tone more than anything that caused Luci to purse her lips shut. He seemed to be troubled. Indeed, she could now see that Carrie’s face was also an interesting mix of emotions - ranging from anger to confusion.

“That recording made me look equally guilty,” the blonde finally managed. “Why would I incriminate myself?”

Again, Luci couldn’t stop herself. “The school has no proof. Technically, the worst they can do is a slap on the wrists, maybe a phone call home. The only hitch in my reasoning is how I know for a fact that you aren't smart enough to pull something like this off.”

“Shut it, brainchild. I’ll have you know that I've recorded pretty damning information before. Remember, Frank?"

Frank winced. “Yeah, um, you mean that time with Julie in that chemistry lab affair?"

"I stand corrected then," Luci acknowledged. “You could have pulled it off. Tori will be pleased to learn that, I'm sure."

“OOoh... I said shut it, or I’ll shut it for you,” Carrie shouted, trying to reach around Frank to grab for the shirt of the younger girl.

“No, stop this,” Frank pleaded, putting his own arms out to block her. “Please. Luci, stop baiting her, and Carrie... you have to admit, insults aside, that what Luci says about Julie makes some sense. Julie may even suspect about our time machine.”

Carrie’s gaze snapped back to him. He lowered his arms slowly. “Oh. Yeah, uh, I’ve been watching her the past couple of weeks. She worries me, kind of. I even talked to Clarke about her.”

Carrie worked through a few more choice facial features. “I tell you Julie wouldn't set me up like that. She doesn't treat her friends that way.”

Luci bit down on her tongue, and was glad when Frank spoke up instead to ask, “Are you one hundred percent sure?”

Carrie fumbled for a strand of hair, which she then started twirling about her finger. "Okay. Say it's Julie," she said, doing her best to sound nonchalant.

She wasn’t successful - Luci could tell that Carrie was getting worried.

“How did she pull it off? She wasn’t even in the room.”

"Well, er..." Frank turned helplessly back to the younger girl.

Luci decided to look back at Frank, rather than at Carrie, to keep her focus. “I don't know how Julie did it,” she admitted to him. "What I've told you has all been worked out in hindsight. Which, I grant, may be part of the reason why I want to go back there with you. I’m missing something.”

Also, Chartreuse deserved an explanation. And an apology.

Luci sensed Carrie glaring at her, but she kept staring at Frank. At his glasses, his jawline, his lips... bad plan. She shifted her gaze to the ceiling.

“Fine," Carrie murmured at last. “Fine, Frank. Luci can come too, if she wants to. I mean, why should I care, right? I’ve already won at being the meanest cheerleader on the face of the Earth. Why continue to prove it?”

Okay, Luci couldn’t ignore that pitying tone. “A sympathy act? Really, Carrie?” she fired off.

As she looked back down though, Luci was surprised to see genuine distress on Carrie’s face. Was Carrie upset because Luci had called out her act? Or, the younger girl wondered, had she actually managed to hurt Carrie’s feelings somehow?

No. No, she wasn’t going to fall for it.

“Okay. Well then, let's all travel together before anything else happens," Frank decided, clapping his hands together and smiling hopefully.

***

The previous Friday evening saw three figures materialize in a residential backyard.

One of them collapsed immediately to the ground, while another slipped over to the fence nearby. The third set down the time machine and popped it open for a quick glance.

"So far so good on the new circuits," Frank said.

“And the school is right over there," Carrie added, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. "Let's go. I figure, if I cut power to the whole stage early, the recording can’t play after Tori’s song. Good enough plan?”

So she had thought about it since they’d spoken on Saturday.

“Actually, yeah. But hold on, Luci's fallen unconscious," Frank indicated.

Carrie sighed. "It's always something with her.”

"The same thing happened to us the first few times we used the time machine, remember?" Frank pointed out, tapping Luci lightly on the cheek. "Besides, she adjusted her new circuitry for 9:30pm, so we should have over half an hour. The school’s right there, so what’s the rush?"

“Fine, fine.” There was a moment of silence. “Look, Frank, do you truly think I’m so mean as to get Laurie...”

Carrie stopped as Luci groaned and began to stir. Then her mismatched eyes shot open, and she sat up quickly, looking around. "Wow. What a rush,” Luci exclaimed.

Frank smiled. "I guess it can be, at that."

"Peachy,” Carrie interjected. “Let's get going.”

The three teenagers were soon over the fence and creeping towards the school.

"Wait," Frank said. "With our past counterparts already inside, how are we going to walk in without drawing any attention? Particularly given how I now have the time machine and our backpack of provisions."

"I chose to wear the same clothing today as I did at the dance," Luci offered. “On the off chance I’d get to come back with you. I’m also not very noticeable, so I'll walk in and go around to the doors closer to the gym. I can let you in there."

"Well, haven't you thought of everything,” Carrie grumped.

“No, but I have actually thought,” Luci emphasized, heading off to the main doors.

Once Luci was out of earshot, Frank turned back to Carrie. “Can’t you be a little nicer to her? She’s majorly helped us out.”

“Yeah, but... you know, Luci’s not a very nice person either. Given some of the things she says. And can she run the hundred metre dash in about twelve seconds? I don’t think so.”

Frank wondered if he’d missed a segue. “What?"

“I’m just saying, nobody’s perfect,” Carrie said defensively. “At least I’m not trying to impress you the way she is."

"Impress me?"

"Yes, it's painfully obvious what her intentions are.”

"Why would Luci be trying to impress me?"

Carrie did a double take. "Are you serious?"

"Of course."

Carrie shook her head slowly. "Good grief, it's a wonder geeks ever reproduce," she seemed to mutter under her breath.

"What?"

"Look, never mind, none of this is important. Let’s get over to the gym doors." She immediately jogged off, setting a quick pace.

Frank followed after, giving up on understanding.

In short order, the three time travellers had reunited inside the school. "We have about ten minutes," Luci informed the others. "Apparently my time setting was also subject to some random variation, we must have arrived closer to 9:45."

"Or your stuff never worked and this is a fluke," Carrie observed. Frank opened his mouth to protest, only to have her add, "But, benefit of the doubt, good job and all that. I'll be off to the circuit breakers near the stage now."

"Try not to, you know, bump into yourself or cause too much trouble?" Frank pleaded.

Carrie grinned. “Tempting, but in this instance, why bother? I’ll meet up with you guys in that classroom there in twenty minutes."

“Okay. In the meantime, we’ll re-adjust the time circuits," Frank offered. Entering the abandoned room in question, he opened up the lid of the machine. “Still stable. You really knew what you were doing, Luci," he remarked as she came up behind him. "Ah, if you were trying to impress me, I’m impressed."

Luci opened and closed her mouth, then cleared her throat. “Yeah, so, while I have this opportunity, I'm going to go tail Julie."

Again, Frank was sure he was missing leaps of logic. "What?"

"She left the cafeteria before everything happened. I figure it was to set things in motion, because there was no way for her to know in advance what song Tori would sing. I have to know what she did."

"Luci, are you sure that's wise?"

“Unlike Carrie, I'll be careful. Be back ASAP,” With that, she slipped off towards the cafeteria.

***

As she walked, Luci reflected on the fact that there were two reasons why she felt she had to do this.

The first being for the benefit of Chartreuse. The poor girl had been crushed by the defeat of their little group. Perhaps if Luci could show her that there was nothing they could have done, it would make Chartreuse feel better.

The second reason was for the benefit of Frank. After all, if Julie WAS initiating some sort of war - Frank’s current ties to Carrie were liable to put him in the blast radius. Maybe. Luci wasn’t sure - she had to know more.

There were a few people milling about in the hallway outside the cafeteria when Luci unobtrusively took up a position there against the wall. About five minutes later, inside the cafeteria, she heard Tori get on the microphone.

This was it. Her eyes turned to the exit, peering attentively for Julie.

There she was. Luci reflexively held her breath as Julie passed by, then inched after her along the wall, keeping the brunette in sight. Which was when she heard the familiar voice.

"Hey, short stuff. Sounds like Tori's up to something, want to come in with me and check it out?"

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Time & Tied