Buckle of Time

Summary

Sam makes a life-changing decision that results in her last mission at WOOHP. With this last mission, an accident happens causing Sam to wake up ten years in the future and suddenly: Sam's in bed with WHO? Clover's doing WHAT at WOOHP? Alex is WHERE? Sam has to figure out how things have changed so drastically and set them right…hopefully before this future becomes permanently her own! But is it all that bad?

Disclaimer: I don't own!
Author's note: I don't know any of the main character's surnames, so I'm just making them up.
Chapter 1: Things Change…

08:15AM, 2001, BEVERLY HILLS HIGH

She had just made it to homeroom. Alex and Clover waved to her from their seats but remained seated. That could only mean one thing. Substitute teacher, she thought. She looked back at the teacher's desk and sure enough, there was a grandfatherly-type man, maybe in his fifties, trying his best to calm down the more raucous lot of the class. She sighed a small sigh of relief. She didn't want to talk to her friends yet.

She sat herself down at her desk and discreetly pulled out an already opened envelope. Pulling out the slip of paper, she scanned it for the tenth time that morning. She couldn't believe that they had actually replied. She had done it for her mom because of her insistent nagging, but she had never believed she would get in. an application from NYC Gifted High isn't something that I should consider, is it? She thought to herself. NYC Gifted High was a private school situated in New York, catering to the many brainy, often genius, students from all around the world. Her mother had wanted her to go there instead of Beverly Hills High, but Sam had wanted to go to a normal school where she could easily start over. She winced at her elementary school memories before she had met Clover and Alex. Because of her high IQ she had been labelled a geek, a nerd, a brain, a freak. Getting into Beverly High was something of a small accomplishment for her and a big boost in her self esteem.

But now she wasn't so sure. Being a spy and then a high school student were all well and good, but they didn't have the intellectual appeal they used to anymore. True, she was in eleventh grade and only had a year and a half to still go before she went to college, so going would be a little late, but since she had only applied the beginning of that semester, it was like some small miracle she had been accepted so soon.

She groaned inwardly. She didn't know who to talk to that would think about her instead of themselves. Her mom would encourage her to go for herself, but secretly she knew that her mother was yearning for her daughter to be something more than a Beverly Hills High student. If she talked with her friends they would talk about how their friendship would be broken. It hit her. She could talk to Jerry. Maybe it was a little unorthodox, but he was more mature about the girls' decisions and lives, like when Alex had threatened to quit. He would think about how she would feel. She folded the letter back into its envelope and then slipped it back in her bag. It was settled. She would call him before first period Geography, a subject she had separate from Clover and Alex. Everything is just a blur in my mind! She yelled to herself. She began massaging her temples, slowly and clockwise. This headache would soon be over.

"Sam, I don't know what to say to you. This is your decision, your life. From my side, if you do choose to go, we at WOOHP would feel your absence. But this is your life, as I said before. Don't make another person choose for you." Jerry ended his transmission and Sam snapped it closed irritably. She wasn't necessarily angry at Jerry: she was angry at him for voicing the truth that was whispering in her ear. She wanted to go, desperately even, but she was tied down on this side too, with her friends, family, familiarity. She stuffed her compact into her bag, then checked outside the empty classroom for any stray student that could perhaps have been listening. Satisfied, she began walking to her Geography class.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn't watch where she was going and walked straight into another girl who had just finished unpacking her locker, books in her arms. Startled, she dropped her books. With a whispered curse, she bent to retrieve them. Sam dropped next to her and began to help.

"I'm really, really sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going," Sam apologized, handing a thick file to the girl. The girl took it from her hand and just sighed.

"Not your fault, no one ever sees me when they're walking," she said softly. Sam looked up at the girl and felt a shock run through the base of her spine, but she didn't know the cause why. The girl had spunky brunette hair cut short like a surfers', running every which way with no help from hair gel. She had dark grey eyes that emphasized an eagle-like glare which was even more outlined by black eyeliner. She wore two necklaces, one with an ankh and the other with an unfamiliar character. She had on a black top, black military pants that reached over her sneakers and still over all that a black coat that reached above her ankles. With all her books finally collected in her arms, she and Sam finally stood up. She began shoving the books into her shoulder bag when she noticed that Sam still stood in front of her.

"Yeah? What d'ya want?" she asked harshly. Sam swallowed. The tingling was still present in her spine and was spreading into her other nerves.

"Maybe, a name?" The girl stared at her for a moment.

"Danny." She closed her bag and walked away. "And I know your name's Sam," she called over her shoulder. She disappeared around the corner, leaving Sam staring after her, alone in the corridor. That's when Sam was sucked through one of WOOHP's many tunnels.

08:45 AM, 2001, WOOHP HEADQUARTERS

She landed with a head-banging thump, bouncing off the cushioned trapdoor onto the floor. She heard two more bodily bumps and squeals of pain as the other two landed on other trapdoors. One of the things she hadn't perfected yet was her landings, and that ignorance hurt like hell.

"Good morning girls," Jerry said cheerfully. He promptly ignored the death-glare that Clover sent him and turned toward the screen, where a picture of a man in his late thirties popped up. He had unruly, long brown hair and a bitter expression on his face that was further hidden by a pair of octagonal spectacles. He wore a classy Armani suit in pinstripe grey that made him even more imposing.

"We have a new villain on the loose, by the name of Fredrick Allan. Don't suppose either of you girls know who he is?" Alex and Clover vigorously shook their heads no, but as Sam shook hers, uncertainty crept up her spine. That face, it's so familiar…

"He's one of the science professors at Cambridge University in Europe, his research tending towards the theory of time travel. He has managed to achieve the improbable, and devised the necessary equations to jump through the past and the future, and our sources inform us that he's planning to launch his first test jump this afternoon. The only problem being that we have no idea where the launch site is, so you lot have two parts to the mission: find and retrieve him and his work before he decides to rewrite history with his ancestors in power. Understood?" an audible gulp came from Alex's side. They nodded.

While Jerry listed their gadgets for the mission, Sam listened with half an ear, having retreated inside herself to think. Today had been too strange, stranger than usual by WOOHP'S standards. First, their was her acceptance to NYC, then that strange meeting with Danny, and now their newest villain who she couldn't help but think she knew somehow…

Unusual for Jerry, he allowed them time to change at WOOHP headquarters instead of sending them off immediately. Sam only saw the reason for this when he gently grabbed her arm when she exited from the changing room, and led her to a more secluded corner.

"So Sam, have you decided whether or not you want to go?" he asked her in a fatherly manner. She looked down, fidgeting slightly.

"I don't know yet. I want to stay, but I also…" she trailed off. Jerry's eyes crinkled in a worried manner.

"Samantha," she looked up at that, "I want you to understand that there is nothing holding you back here. Look, I'm not saying that Clover and Alex aren't important; what I'm trying to say is that if you truly believe that this will make you happy, that this will make you more you, then you should go for it. Life isn't about holding back what you have, you understand?" he finished saying. She nodded slowly, feeling small. It was awkward being talked to like a fellow adult. He smiled at her and she noted the worry in his eyes as she walked over to KIRTT.

12:48 PM, 2001, SOMEWHERE OVER THE GRAND CANYON

"Ok, that's it, he's gotta be here or else I'm going home!" Clover growled out of the corner of her mouth. Alex and Sam looked at each-other, stifling giggles behind their hands. True, they were all feeling tired and a bit frustrated after almost four hours of misleading clues and cold trails, but Clover was usually the one that the irritation popped up in first. Samantha chuckled again and looked down at their readout. According to popular time theory, the highest natural point anywhere in the world was the most natural spot to pick, because in the past it would be used as a defensive position for battle guards and feudal kingdoms, and in the future, because of the rising level of the oceans, would be an excellent place for weather stations or cities.

Though why they were at one of the most famous canyons in the world was a bit beyond her. She guessed it to be a last ditch effort to find Professor Allan. She raised her head and squinted into the wide canyon that rode downwards before her. There was nothing that her human eye could see. She looked up at her friends. Clover was busy guzzling water and Alex was checking out the scene below with her Zoom-In shades. All was quiet.

BOOM!

The explosion thundered first through their ears before passing underground, knocking them all off their feet. It was silent again, except for the few rocks that tumbled down cliff-faces. All Sam could see around her was a thick cloud of dust that hung over them without a hint of dissipating. She heard Clover's groaning and Alex coughing in the distance.

"You guys okay?" she called out. Alex coughed again in reply.

"Just great, thanks. Another one like that would really be cool," Clover said with sarcasm.

"What was that?" Alex asked. Sam fumbled in her backpack, feeling around for her Hairdryer Duplex.

"Dunno, but I bet it leads us to the bad guy," she said as she pulled it out. Setting it to maximum she blew the thick dust-cloud away, uncovering a very irritated Clover already climbing into the canyon.

"Are you guys coming or not?" she yelled up at them. Sam rolled her eyes as she helped Alex to her feet. There was no use in trying to catch up to Clover just yet. They both knew that already from earlier experience, so they took their time, albeit hasty, climbing down the ropes. Sam appreciated Clover's high detective sense. She was already following the direction from which the explosion had come from, lower in the canyon than Sam had thought.

About ten minutes later, Sam found herself trailing after Alex through a small fissure that was almost hidden behind solidified rubble. As she walked through, she couldn't help but gasp out loud. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Light somehow filtered through the entire cave, reflecting off the lake's ripples, scattering rays of liquid light onto the sandstone walls. The air shimmered with lit dust particles, golden and cool. The lake itself was a dark pool, gently lapping at the edge of the cave floor; sometimes it was dark and forbidding and, where the light shone, milky and calm. It stretched as far as she could see. Haphazardly stacked and hung from the ceiling, stalagmites and stalactites were also lit from some unseen source of sunlight. They glittered like rugged diamonds, covered with crystals and dampness. There was no sign of any plant-life, which added to the unreality of the cave. She shook her head to break away from the daze she was in.

"Hey, I think I found something!" Clover's voice called from further on, echoing along a thin horizontal stalagmite bridge that stretched across the lake, high above the water. Alex glanced back at Sam before she began to follow. She then nimbly marched over the bridge, pausing once when the there was a slight tremor that rumbled through the cave, rippling across the lake's surface and causing small pockets of dust to fall down from the ceiling. She stepped onto solid land hidden in the dark and took out her flashlight to shine across the ceiling and the falling dust.

Sam thought good of the idea and took hers out too, shining it along the path of the bridge. She stopped for a moment and peered over the edge: it was a long way down, suddenly. She felt dizzy and snapped her gaze back to the bridge's path. She started to walk again, a little more slowly, when a loud explosion bombarded the cave. The waves of explosive power roared through the ceiling and floor; Sam watched in horror as cracks ran through the bridge in hyper speed, and then stopped for a second. "Sam!" Alex yelled out, but by then the floor had collapsed underneath Sam and she fell into the lake with the remains of the bridge. She went under, rocks crashing on top and around her. She swam from side to side, avoiding the falling debris for the moment, but unable to surface. A large boulder unexpectedly smashed into the lake, landing on her shoulder and she felt a penetrating crack go along her arm and to her neck. She screamed uncontrollably in pain, water rushing into her mouth, snatching away needed breathe. She felt a shock in the water and looking up saw what appeared to be the whole ceiling collapsing into the water, pushing her deeper and deeper under. She tried to avoid the descending rock but couldn't with her broken shoulder. All she could do was panic inside as she began to lose consciousness, as her vision turned to black, as the pressure of rocks turning and tumbling increased, as she felt herself sinking. It was an endless plummeting into certain death. She had one last surge of energy that flashed white across her line of vision, making her blind to her direction, and kicked out with her legs…

…and found herself falling out of a bed, tangled in sheets. Terror-ridden still from her near-drowning, she began to lose control as they wrapped round her like a cocoon and she struggled to unravel herself. All of a sudden, another pair of hands were pulling at the sheets and soon she found herself suddenly exposed to the air, facing a girl in her mid-twenties with long brunette hair reaching past her shirted chest, mussed from sleep. Sam felt the chill air against her bare skin and suddenly she realized she was naked. She grabbed at the sheet and wrapped it around her body, struggling for some reason, still keeping an eye on the strange girl. The girl's steel-grey eyes were filled with worry. Sam stood up, slightly wobbly on her legs.

"Sam? What's wrong?" she asked from the bed. That's when Sam recognized who she was. She looked around in rising fear for a mirror and spotted one in the far corner. She rushed over to it and her mouth fell open in shock as she stared at her reflection.

She was older. Her hair wasn't midway to her back anymore; instead it was to her shoulders in ragtag layers. Her face was more mature: it was leaner and looked as if it had seen too much. Across her right shoulder was a thick jagged scar: it stretched from the hollow at her neck diagonally up to the top of her shoulder and then running along the apex before dipping from the edge to halfway on top of her breast. She flushed as she looked down at her chest: she had undergone a late growth spurt as was famous in her family. She slowly turned around and looked at the girl watching her from the queen-size bed. She swallowed hard.

"Danny? What year is it?" Danny looked at her strangely but answered.

"2011," she said carefully. Sam felt tears began to build in the corner of her eyes. Danny saw this and rushed out of the bed to gather Sam in her arms, who stood too stunned to move; and then she could do nothing but gasp in shock, stumbling backwards out of her grip, breaking out of her daze. She slipped on the edge of the sheet and felt her back hit the wall, legs finally failing her, falling to a seated position on the floor. Danny crouched down in front of her, reaching a hand out to touch Sam's wet cheek. Sam turned away, eyes squeezed shut, but still felt Danny's hand stroke her cheek. It left and she felt suddenly cold without that presence. She then felt Danny's hands cupping her face, pulling her gently to one side; she opened her eyes and found herself facing the girl's face filled with concern and love, directed at her. Without a pause, just a fluid motion, her mouth was on top of Sam's, her tongue caressing hers. Sam responded without thinking and was engulfed in the heat of the kiss…

To Be Continued…