Pleasant Nightmares
Preface: I hardly ever write an authors note, but I feel that I need to for this story. I know the issue with Lewis/Cornelius and his mother has probably been done to death, but might I convince you to suffer through one more? I swear this will be the best you will ever read of its kind. This story contains a few minimal Adult themes and sequences, so please, keep an open mind when reading this, and do not flame me for being mature in a Disney story. Cornelius is an adult, and will act like it. I should also mention that this is mainly through his perspective, but written also from the point of view of the 'angel on his shoulder'. I went through several versions of how he might go about finding his mother before I settled on the three written here, so this story is thought out and planned (least to a degree). Please, also excuse any spelling errors, because I check, recheck, and triple check my writing before posting it, and anything that messes up is because of the document uploading process, and something getting skewed in the event. Enjoy! Oh, and don't forget the Mashed Potatoes! (Constructive Criticism welcomed)
OH! And much thanks to Bean15 (my oh-so-awesome Beta Reader) and her wonderful sufferings through this, and taking time from her busy schedule to read it and point out my errors and the parts she liked. And yes, Emily, Wilbur said 'hi' and then blew a razz at you for telling him to not play late-night Chargeball.
5-14-2008: to increase reviews… I have decided to make this story into split documents, and upload them as I feel like it.
Fiction
The lights where a soft blue within the interior of the machine, lighting up the long face and circle glasses of the man that sat there. He was watching the outside world, in sepia tones and rain falling from the sky. Checking his multi-chronographic watch, which he had created to automatically adjust to whatever time he found himself in, he saw that he still had a few minutes before the woman would be passing by his hiding place. After that, his younger self, Lewis at age 12, and Wilbur at age 13, would be waiting right in front of Sixth Street Orphanage. Then the woman would walk again past this same small park. Pulling the time-appropriate hat onto his head, smashing his hair down so it looked loose and long around his ears, he thought for a moment about what he was doing, then pressed the release for the overhead hatch. The lights cut off, and he grabbed the remote to get back in the machine afterwards. He had been waiting 32 years to summon the courage to go back to this night, where he was a few weeks old, 12, and now 44 all at once. He would see his mother, and learn more about her. He wanted to know, to finally learn about where he really came from.
Letting the hatch close, he pulled the leather long coat closed, shedding the rain as he stood beside the machine. There she was, hurrying past, a baby clutched in her arms. He couldn't, didn't, stop her now. He had to let her give the child up, otherwise his future would fall apart, and… 'If I stop her, will present-me, at 44, disappear, in order for another 'Lewis' to be 44 instead?' He didn't want to screw up his chances for his younger self, for the life to be discovered and remembered. That was why he was doing this now, after his family was solid, where this wouldn't change what was going on for him in the present. As far as he knew, what he remembered, everything happens accordingly.
The exacts of time-travel were not known, except knowing that he was now, currently, in three places at once. There was no paradox of knowing of himself, of seeing himself, in the same place. It would have happened when he was 12—no, it would have happened tonight, if there was such thing as a time paradox that could destroy time and space. When he saw his younger self, it would have happened then… but here he was, 44 years after this day, and two paradoxical points later, and the world was still here. He leaned against the invisible slick metal of the Time Machine at his back, closing his eyes as the patter of rain hit his hat and the ground around him. He could stand in the rain forever, but he was here for a reason.
Pushing off the machine, he strode to the sidewalk, and looked down the street to Sixth Street Orphanage. There she was, and he could see his younger self, crouched in hiding, getting soaked. She was hurrying, with her head down, and feet clicking against the slick pavement. She was wearing heels, not the most sensible thing to be dressed in on a stormy night. He kept his head down, wanting to time this perfect, though if the street had been busy, it would have made perfect sense.
He started walking towards her, knowing, or assuming as the case may be, that she wasn't watching where she was going either. He tilted his head down and blocked his own vision. He kept his arms ready to catch her when she fell. Her clicking feet were sounding louder, closer, and he looked up just to see her collide with him. His arms were around her, keeping her from hitting the ground. "So sorry, miss." He apologized, but then heard her weeping, and she didn't move away. He looked up to the front door of the Orphanage, seeing the lights of the first Time Machine flicker and fly away, bubbling out with a lightning strike and thunder.
She clung to him, shaking. She was so thin, light, frail. He tried to be as much a stranger as possible, but he was having a hard time resisting the urge to hug this poor woman. "Miss?"
She looked up at him, her eyes red from crying, and a face so young, so sick-looking. It tugged his heart to realize that his mother was so young and weak… how did she ever manage to give birth? He knew it had taken a lot from Franny for Wilbur's entrance into the world. Her eyes were tawny gray, hair a faded blonde, all which he could see in the muted world of the past.
"Are you all right?" Cornelius kept his voice soft, face neutral.
She shook her head, shoulders shaking from a sob, and then she buried her face to his chest. He could just make out her words. "I just gave up my baby… it was him or my life… nothing I could do…" He finally gave in, and wrapped his arms around her.
"It's all right; he grows up to be a great person." He muttered, holding the frail teen against him. He had looked, far back in the past, when he was 19, as to what happened to his mother, but because no one ever knew her name, or what she looked like, or anything about her, his search fell short very quickly.
"H-how d'you know?" she sobbed, her fingers digging into his shirt.
He couldn't resist spilling the secret. "Because you're hugging him."
Her eyes shot up at his, blinking furiously. He could tell she didn't believe him. He expected her to deny it, to argue with him that he was bluffing, kidding her, making her think like a fool. He didn't expect her eyes to roll into her head and she to go completely limp in his arms. Her weight, dead weight, was more than he had been expecting, and it took a few moments for him to gather the strength to pick her up and take her to some shelter off the street and into a doorway.
Maybe saying that wasn't the best idea right then. She really had no idea who he was, and saying that she was hugging her son, who she had just left as a newborn on the stoop of an orphanage, was more than likely too much for her to handle right then. He leaned her against the brick wall, where they were both out of the rain. He wasn't going to leave her here, and because he was in the time machine coming here, he had all the time in the world to spend here, and still get home within the hour that he left. Heck, he could be back within five minutes after leaving, and no one would have any idea what had gone on with him, or how long he had truly been gone.
He sat next to her, keeping an arm around her as they sat. They could pass off as two lovers who had gotten drunk and sat within the first door they had come across. He tipped his hat to shade most of his face, making it hard to see him properly. Her hood kept herself hidden as well, and yet she leaned as if she was conscious, or just dozing off a late-night drink. He knew, from research alone, that this part of town was known for drunks and homeless, that if a police officer drove past, they wouldn't worry too much about them. In a few years, this would be a better place.
He felt his mother stir, using him to sit up straight. She looked around, finally spotting his shoes, and then sitting to look at him. Under the yellow light, she looked even sicker than she did before. "I'm… I'm not dreaming, am I? You really are…?"
He nodded. "My name is Cornelius; I'm from the year 2039. I'm 44 years old, with a wife and son, and a very large family. You left me, as a baby, in the care of Mildred Duffy, the caretaker of the 6th Street Orphanage. At the age of 12, in 2007, I was… will be, adopted by Lucille and Bud Robinson. I came back to now in a time machine."
She stared at him, mouth hanging open. He could see that she was actually missing a few teeth, and some were broken. A fight, perhaps? She wasn't as pretty as he had imagined, nor as well kept. This poor creature next to him was frayed and falling apart. He thought she might faint again, but she held on, looking away to stare at the far wall. "You… you don't look like anyone I know, though…" she finally muttered, looking back to him. "You look more like… my… my father."
Was there a shocking reality hidden under her words? Was there something so completely taboo going on that it should, in fact, scare him away from her? Was it just that her father's genes happened to dominate her own? He hoped her words were just that, words. There should be no underlying meaning, and he would force himself to accept that, for now. "Is that… a bad thing?"
Tear sprang into her eyes, as if she was about to spill a dark secret. "My father… forced…." She didn't finish before shattering into tears.
Cornelius knew, now, what he should never have found out. His blood went cold, and his heart skipped several beats. His fear came back up, Taboo. He took a deep breath, and held her close. No wonder why she had to give him up, she couldn't stand the thought of him, a product of abuse. Why couldn't he have just been content to leave this all alone? He was happy to not know this, and now… everything he created, the fiction of his mother, was shattered. This was the ugly, hideous truth behind it all. He should get up, and walk away from her, return to the delusion of his own mind, act like this never happened, that he would never know, never wanted to know, never needed to know. He should go home, and destroy the Time Machines; all the plans, the blue prints, the models, even the failures. He should have just left the past alone. He should have just never created them, none, never even started the work in the first place. "Hind sight is 20-20." He muttered. Yet the scientific part of his mind rejected all thoughts that what she said was true. If he truly was the product of incest, then there should be some sort of deformity. There was none. All the doctors he had been to, physicians mostly, said he was perfectly healthy, with nothing wrong. So logic pointed out that what she suggested was not true.
The woman looked up at him. "Wha-what?" He met her pain-filled gray eyes. He didn't even know her name.
"Sorry, there is nothing I can do to help you." He said, pulling his arm away from her, and using the wall to push himself up. He didn't want to look at her, but to just walk away. Perhaps he would destroy the Time Machines anyway.
She latched onto his arm. "No, wait, please, Cornelius… tell me more…" He looked down at her, so pathetic with her shallow face and sickly eyes. "Help me…"
He fought the urge to push her away, hating her, and that much was evident on his face, and by the feelings stirring deep in his gut. He fought for a bit longer, and then settled back to the ground. He could, at least, do what she requested. He had all the time he needed right now. "All right… what do you want to know?"
The storm clouds were floating away by the time he finished detailing to her his life, and his multi-chronographic watch beeped that it was sunrise. He still didn't know her name, but didn't really care, because another feeling had come over that she would be dead within the next few days, or even hours. With the new light coming through, he could see that she was bruised all over, her face bearing old and new spots, and that she wasn't fed, if at all. How did she manage to have such a healthy child? Something at the back of his mind also made the mention of drugs; that she was an addict of sorts, and the long night would wreak havoc with her later. At least, though, she knew that her son would have a great life ahead of him… From her, he managed to get his real birth date, and the name she called him by: Baby. He surmised that it was Mildred who got him properly in the system as Lewis, with a social security number and all that… This woman seemed far too incompetent to accomplish that much… or to even go to a hospital.
"My name… is Selena Matheson. Cornelius… could you; when you get back, see what happened to me?" She finally said, after a long time of silence as the clouds cleared into a bright blue (if slightly sepia-colored) sky. Saying that took much from her, and he couldn't help but feel pity for her. Her life would be cut so short. He couldn't, wouldn't, forget her, for as much as he wanted too, he should never forget her.
Once more with an arm around her, he felt her breathing slow, almost until she fell asleep. She was dying faster than he had expected… his mother dead at his side shortly thereafter. No wonder why she never came looking for him later on in his life, because she wasn't there.
Cornelius made sure her body was comfortable, leaning alone against the wall, before he stood up, looking down at the woman he would have hated to call 'mother'. Part of him spoke to call her a pitiful creature who was only thinking of herself and not of her child, of her blood. And yet part wanted to take pity on her, because she went though things he could never have imagined going through. He was happy she gave him up; to save him from that world she had chained herself to. She cared enough to do that much. He finally turned from the stoop and walked down to the side walk and back to the park where he left the Time Machine.
"I know what happened to you, Selena… you died." He muttered, pressing the button to open the hatch of the machine. He climbed in just as people started showing up for morning runs or walking their pets. No tears came as he thought of the woman, and their long conversation together in her last hours of life. But at least he knew more about himself back then than he ever thought possible… and some were thoughts that sickened him to the point of retching. But he held back from the act. He would stuff the truth away, and never dredge it back up again.
Starting the craft up, he angled it skyward and took off, leaving the clouds behind before tapping in the time he wanted to go to.
A week later found him walking into his office, carrying his briefcase. He rarely used his office, but he needed some time to think, away from family and other employees. No one disturbed him up here, either. He nodded to the woman who was his secretary; an older woman with white hair and black eyes hidden behind rimless glasses. She had been working for him since the company first launched from the ashes of Inventco. Loyal and quiet, he never had to worry about her. Pushing open the doors to his spacious-yet-crowded office, he weaved his way to his desk, where papers were stacked. They were not usual business related things, but scrap sheets of inventions from other people all over the office and the world. He would go through them, later.
Before sitting, he pulled an electronic notepad from his briefcase, and plugged it into his computer, letting the files transfer. Sitting back, he watched the screen flicker as the devices communicated. Grabbing a handful of papers, he paged through them, not really sorting or reading them. In the week since he got back from 1995 he hadn't picked up a single tool, not even a pencil. His mind was oddly blank and out of ideas as to what to create, and he could never force himself to make anything. His old notebooks were all finished, their ideas made and either in containment or in use all over the city. At least other people were still creating.
The computer beeped, and the holographic screen flickered, bringing up the updated files that were traded. "Open… search engine. Look-up Selena Matheson." The words came out before he could think or stop himself. The computer responded with a few muted beeps, and flickered. It pulled up a High School Graduation picture of Selena Matheson… but the girl showed wasn't the woman he met. This woman was younger, looking hardly 18… the bio provided said she graduated Valedictorian at the age of 15. She graduated early because of her high intelligence and amazing grades and knowledge. She had waiting scholarships to Harvard and Yale, and a few more elite but obscure schools. A small article that followed the Yearbook entry gave more: her IQ ranged near 250, which was unheard of in 1992. Who the hell, then, was the woman he met? He searched deeper, and found she never went to any secondary education, but disappeared into her home because her father was a drunk and abusive, and no one could save her. Last seen entering St. Bernard's Medical center, in labor.
She was never checked out by a parent or guardian, but disappeared from the hospital, with her baby several days later. Drug tests showed that she was clean, but before… she had been heavily intoxicated, and not of her own free will. The dates were slightly off what information he remembered, since she left him there about 2 weeks after she was at the hospital. She went home to her father, and then things went down hill from there. She was found dead several blocks from home, sitting on a stoop. The cause of death was heart failure.
Cornelius looked at the screen for a long while, and then sat forward, fingers flying over the keys. Looking up DNA records were challenging, as it wasn't a system even thought of then. It didn't arrive till late 2008, early '09. There was a slim margin, though, that even the deceased were tagged. He looked up her name, and came back with a green light, she was in the records. He pulled up his own, and sent a request to the hospital to have a match-test run, and to look for possible other matches. He wasn't about to give her father credit for anything.
"If you dig up the past, all you find is dirty." The quote played back in his mind from an old movie, 2003 was the air date. The name escaped him, but the words echoed and rebounded. He was willing to get his hands dirty, if only to settle his own heart and soul on the mater of his mother. He had sworn long ago he would never look her up, yet what did he do last week? What was he doing now? Why did he make the time machines in the first place, if not for this very purpose?
The hospital got back to him after several minutes, saying the test was underway. The Human Genome had been mapped some time ago; he wanted to say 2020, but that was just a rough guess. It had taken many years to do it, but at least that was one hurdle the human species was over, for now. He sat back once more, staring numbly at the screen, images of her flickering through his mind. Her last few hours of life, and then being there next to her as she faded. If he had tried, could he have saved her?
The phone beeped, the secretary coming over. "Mr. Robinson, your wife is on Line 1." He didn't give a reply, except snatch up the headset, and slip it into place, depressing the flashing button a moment later. "Franny?"
"Cornelius, the least you could have done was let me know you were going to the office today." The tone in her voice made him smile. The concern and agitation were one of the things he liked hearing… though he liked it even more when directed at Wilbur.
"Sorry, but I needed to get in early, and I have the entire Himalayan Mountains worth of papers to go through." He replied, casting blue eyes over the papers waiting to be looked at.
"It just seemed… strange, that you would go in now, when you weren't even in your lab at all this past week… where did you go, that day?" She was curious, still concerned for his well-being.
He turned in his chair, gazing out the windows. He had come back several hours later than he had intended to, making his absence noticed by all. It had been nearly 3 AM when he finally crawled to bed, waking her up in the process. "To see my mother… but I didn't find her."
"You are just as bad as Wilbur when he lies." The woman accused. And she was right. He wouldn't argue there.
"All right… I did find her, but she wasn't at all what I was expecting." He took a deep breath before continuing. "Franny, I watched her die. She had been a really smart woman; graduating high school at 15, Valedictorian, with scholarships to any college she wanted. But… something happened, and her life was stopped. I have to know what happened, honey, I need to know. I thought I didn't care, but I realize now that I do."
The other end of the line was silent, but he knew she was still there. "My real mother is dead… and right now, I'm seeing who my father is. I won't go seeking him out, though. Once I know, I'll let this be."
"Cornelius… why now? You could have looked for several years before this… so why now?" Franny seemed lost in her own thoughts right then, her voice soft.
"Because… because I was worried about what I might dredge up, what I would find. It took me until last week to go into the past, and we have had the Time Machines for nearly 5 years now."
Franny sighed audibly on the other end. "I'll give you this much credit: you are persistent and stubborn when it comes to research and answer-seeking. Just… let us, or at least me, know where and when you are going, so we don't worry about you." He knew it wasn't said that she wanted to know exactly what he was going to be doing when he got to when-ever. He was wrong to not inform her, and felt terrible for that.
He turned back to the screen, seeing if anything new had showed up. A family tree for the Matheson clan was highlighted. "I'll let you know from now on, don't worry." She knew he was as good as his word. He tapped a few buttons and transferred files to his notepad. "I still have a few things to do around the office today, but I will be home for dinner."
After their good-byes, he returned the headset to its cradle. It would be a few days before the hospital would get back to him with the match percent and any other viable—he blinked at the screen, seeing a waiting message. That was… unusually fast. He clicked the icon, letting the message load. He was shocked to see it was a video message, not only that, but a vid-chat invitation.
"Mr. Robinson, I'm Dr. Henry Zorander, head of the DNA Department at the Medical Center. I was shocked to see your request pass over my desk this morning… Do you mind if we chat about it for a bit?" Dr. Zorander was a young man, with brown hair and green eyes and half-moon glasses. The kind of man Cornelius would like talking to. He accepted the video chat invitation, looking to the camera that lifted itself from the pile of papers. He really needed a better system of getting these things.
"Dr. Zorander, Cornelius Robinson here…" The screen flickered as the still image updated to a living and moving Zorander.
"Ah, Thought you might have been busy, Mr. Robinson." The doctor settled back in his seat, setting a mug down. Coffee, perhaps?
Cornelius lifted a pile of papers. "The usual for me… and my unusual request of your lab."
"Yes, it is. You understand that Miss Matheson is, has been dead longer than you have been alive, right?" Henry leaned forward, hands clasped together in interest.
"I know, but I met her a week ago, back in 1995."
"Time Travel? Rumor has it you made a Time Machine, but I didn't think it was operational."
Cornelius nodded. "Both are. I just keep them well guarded to keep people from messing with their own lives… and that of others."
"Yet you went into the past to see your mother? How does that not mess up your life?" It was common knowledge that he was once an orphan.
"She never took me back from Ms. Duffy, never came to see me. My life is pretty well set right now; she's dead. The only thing I could have possibly done was at least tell her what will become of her son when he is older."
Henry seemed rather skeptic about his short tale. "And all you want is for my lab to confirm, and find out your real parents?"
"It's a loose end that I would like to see tied up."
Henry sighed. "There is no guarantee that your father is even in our system, or was from this area. If we can't find him here, then there is the request to access the national database—and even then, he might not be there either."
Cornelius thought about this for a moment, then nodded. "I know, and won't worry about it. If you can, extend your search through present-day. I have a time machine in production here at the factory, and there might be a possibility that someone went back…" As disturbing as those words were for him to say, he wanted to cover all bases.
"Remote possibility, I hope?" Zorander asked, typing away at something.
"I hope so too." Cornelius replied, shuffling a few papers absentmindedly. He pulled one out, looking it over without seeing it. "Dr. Zorander, what would you do if you were in my shoes?"
Henry looked up from his typing. "Mr. Robinson… I'm not a psychiatrist, but I can tell you I would feel pretty over whelmed. I wouldn't ponder it too long, and follow my own motto."
'Keep Moving Forward' flickered across his screen, though there was nothing there to make it display. "Once I have the answers, though…"
The screen went black suddenly, and he opened his eyes to the hazy view of his room, seeing it through eyes unaltered by his glasses. The air was heavy in his chest. Was it all just a dream? He sat up, feeling Franny's arm slide from his chest. He reached for his glasses, finding them where he always placed them for the last 17-18 years that he had slept in this room, in this bed. He slipped them on, seeing the moonlight filter from the overhead windows, lighting up the enormous room. He looked to the digital clock on the nightstand, seeing it was nearly 4 am, Wednesday. Did he really go into the past? Did he really talk with Henry Zorander? The harder he thought about it, the more like fiction it all felt. He grabbed his robe, sliding from the bed and pulling the warm fabric about his bare form. He had names, which were probably fictional… though Henry Zorander did ring a bell as part of the Medical Center Staff. But Selena Matheson?
Fiction, that is all she was, fiction. But maybe he would go back and find out the truth. It had all just been a dream, vivid, but a dream nonetheless. How many times could he mess with the past, or even… shaking his head, he padded to his lab, stopping outside Wilbur's door and peering in. The ChargeBall screen was flickering, the sound cut low, and the sleeping 15-year-old was curled on the bed, the controllers discarded to the floor, and a blanket pulled hap-hazardously into place. He would be amazed if Wilbur was really sleeping, or just faking it to make him think the kid hadn't been up late playing. He closed the door again, and set off down the corridor.
Mounting the steps into his lab, he glanced about the moon-lit inventions, all faintly glowing with whatever energy they possessed. He felt at home here, surrounded by things he could control. This atrium was his place, all his. He rarely brought anyone up here, save for Wilbur sneaking in. The air hummed, and it felt alive here, that everything was living and breathing. He took a moment to let the calm fill him, before walking to a computer desk tucked out of the way. The terminal lit up at his approach, the screen waiting for his voice-print password. He had too many sensitive things on here for just anyone to peek at. The security annoyed him, as it was also on his work computer—which gave perfect evidence that it had been a dream.
"Cornelius Robinson. Keep Moving Forward." He spoke to the screen, and got an ACCEPTED message in turn as the login screen faded into the main screen. Taking a seat, he let the keyboard lights activate, and the eye-cursor recognize him through the glasses.
"Web search, Selena Matheson. Person." He instructed, watching the screen flicker to obey. He glanced about the lab, the system beeping once to get his attention. NO MATCHES FOUND
Cornelius blinked, but figured he shouldn't be surprised. "Search MATHESON, noun." The screen flickered, coming back with Agatha Matheson, an actress in the movie he had watched the night before. She had played a character named Selena.
"New Search. Henry Zorander, Person." The computer beeped, showing exactly who he had spoken too in his dream. The man was indeed Head of the DNA Department at the Medical Center, and had attended a gala for all Robinson Employees and Partners. He searched a bit deeper, and found that he had a picture taken with Dr. Zorander.
He sat back with a sigh, realizing that he had found what he needed to, and that it had, indeed, been a dream last night. "If you dig up the past, all you find is dirty." He muttered. He still, though, wanted to know. He had a taste of what it might be like… but that was worst-case scenario, played out in a dream, a safe place. Now he needed to take the risk. He had to go into the past, and clear this up before the dream started repeating.