First, some words.
This story starts out a little slow. It's all for the character progression, the logic of the situation, and to explain things a little more. This is probably the first story I haven't hit the ground running in. Try to bear with it.
This is kind of experimental, so we'll see where it goes from the first chapter. That means feedback is appreciated.
This is one of the many stories the characters Tessa and Jamie have been added into. Some other worlds they have been included in are Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, X-Men, and Dragon Age.
I stifled a yawn as I checked my phone for the third time in the last five minutes. I knew I didn't have any new messages, but some OCD tendency inside of me felt a kind of relief just making sure. Then again, I could have just been impatient... And eager. It had been at least a year since I'd seen my best friend in person. I often traveled down to Oregon to visit her and family, but this was the first time she was actually coming to see me, in Colorado. Had it not been my 21st birthday, she might not have agreed to come. But after many days of begging, she finally conceeded to be the one to fly over.
I looked down at the car seat my son was laying in. Still buckled up and ready to go, but not uncomfortable, he was fast asleep; the binky he usually sported drooping out of his slack jaw.
I smiled to myself a little before leaning down to gently stroke the side of his face. He blinked a little and waved his head before taking a deep sigh and pulling his aloof binky back into his mouth.
I'm an angel with a shotgun, fight until the war's won, I don't care if heaven won't take me back...
I swiped open the call, illuminating Jamie's picture on the screen. "Hey. Where are you?"
"Just landed. I'm coming out of gate... G, it looks like."
I looked around the vast amount of halls the Denver airport had. "Great. There are probably about ten thousand of those."
I could nearly see her looking around, herself. "Okaayy... Hang on. Let me see..." She trailed off. It sounded like she was huffing a bit. I could hear the wheels from her suitcase in the background. "Okay, I'm coming out towards the restaurants."
"Okay. I'll meet you there."
"Okay."
I waited a few seconds. She didn't hang up. I smirked a little to myself, finding great pleasure in the fact she was never the first to end a call with me.
I hung up the phone and grabbed the handle on William's car seat, lugging him with me to the food area.
My high-heeled boots clacked on the stone hard floor of the usually people-filled airport, empty because of the late hour. I stifled another yawn.
I had barely walked into the food section when I saw her, red hair glinting against the bright lights on the ceiling. The grin that came onto my face was impossible to stop and my pace quickened to greet her. We met in the middle and I set William down, hugging her tight.
"Ahh," I sighed happily. "It's great to see you."
I pulled back and smiled into her bright blue eyes. She returned the smile.
"Miss me?" She asked, her wolfish fangs sticking out in her grin.
"Of course!" I replied enthusiastically. "I'd have to, considering the late hour I'm picking you up."
She rolled her eyes playfully. "Oh, whatever. I've seen you stay awake until the sun comes back up."
I opened my mouth to try and say something witty, but she continued, with some concern on her face, "But you do look pretty tired. Do you want me to drive? I got a little bit of sleep on the plane."
I glanced at the circles under her eyes and briefly considered that she might be lying. I knew she didn't sleep much, and I had never seen her comfortable enough on a plane to sleep, even if she did.
"No, it's okay. Besides," I raised my eyebrows and grinned cheekily, "I don't let anyone drive my old man."
She snickered. "Okay, whatever." Her eyes fluttered to William's car seat. "Do you want me to carry him for you?"
I quickly picked him up before she could do it before me. Even though she probably knew I'd reject the offer, she was the type of person that would carry him anyway, just because she wanted to make the load easier on me. "You just got off a plane. I should be the one carrying your heavy items, not the other way around."
I saw her tighten the grasp on her luggage, as if she feared I might try and take it from her. "No, it's okay."
We started walking toward the general direction of the exit.
"So where are you parked?" She asked.
I huffed and shook my head. "Hell if I remember."
/ / / / / /
I set my overnight bag, my purse, William's diaper bag, and his sleeping pillow on the hotel bed and sat down, humming the tune of the exhausted person as my feet felt relief from standing. Jamie came in shortly after, carrying her suitcase and William's car seat.
I unzipped my black boots, freeing my calves from their stronghold against the winter. Even though it was only late October, it had already snowed several times in the past week. It had warmed up the last two days, so I was okay to wear a skirt with black hosiery underneath.
I slipped off my skirt, shorts, and leggings and fell back onto the bed. I could have easily fallen asleep just like that, but I knew I had to get up and get William situated into bed and brush my teeth. I sighed tiredly and sat back up, zipping open my overnight bag and taking out a plain blue tank top and my Superman pajama pants. I snatched my toothbrush bag and walked over to set it in the bathroom before slipping off my Star Wars shirt and putting on my night clothes.
I walked back into the main room and stuffed my discarded clothes back into my overnight bag and then went to unbuckle William. I held him with my right arm while I grabbed his sleeping pillow with the other and set it between my elbow and my hip. I pulled the covers back on the bed I had claimed and set the pillow down, laying william in the middle of the crescent-shaped cushion.
I moved my bags to the foot of the bed on the floor and went to brush my teeth. Jamie joined me not long after, and unsurprisingly, finished brushing her teeth before I did. It took me about twenty minutes to a half an hour to brush my teeth. Call me meticulous, but I liked to actually feel that they were clean.
She was in her own pajamas - a grey tank and Nightmare Before Christmas bottoms - and in bed by the time I came back into the room. I didn't need to look at her screen to know she was scrolling through Tumblr on her phone.
I slipped in between the covers on my bed and turned toward William, cradling him and the pillow in my left arm while my right was tucked under my head.
"Night night." I murmured, already feeling my mind settle into the throes of unconsciousness.
"Night."
/ / / / /
I should have known it was a dream. Everything was in a strange sepia tone. The world had been drained of much color, but at the time, it seemed perfectly normal to me.
I bounced William up and down, grimacing as his crying got louder and more fierce. I whimpered a little and looked down at him worriedly. What could be the problem? He was freshly changed, perfectly fed, he didn't want his binky. Obviously I was holding him, so that wasn't the problem.
He thrashed and kicked in my arms, face red and tears streaming down his tiny face.
I held him closer to me, laying him flat against my chest. "It's okay, baby," I drawled softly, trying to soothe him. "It's okay, I'm right here."
Suddenly, as dreams often do, things took a strange turn, and instead of continuing to try and soothe him, I set him down on the motel bed. He thrashed and kicked and cried harder, desperate to be picked back up.
As if possessed by some unknown drive, I turned away from him and walked through a door that wasn't in the real motel but had somehow been placed in the dream motel. It was a small room with a vase of flowers sitting on a dark circular table. I picked up one of the flowers - white rose, my favorite of all - and put it to my nose. It had no scent. Rather, when I tried to breathe in through my nose, I felt as if my throat were choked. Just as I began to struggle for air, the focus of the dream shifted back to where I had left William. A melody on a music box began to play. I might have found it beautiful in a different scenario, but as the music box played, from the wall came a black shadow with large clawed hands that ran back and forth through the air, suggesting it was intending to grab something. It slowly creeped closer to William, and, realizing that this shadow creature was about to grab him and steal him away, the panic from being unable to breathe and the panic from losing my son to some monster struck so much fear in my heart that I woke up, screaming at the top of my lungs.
The sun streaming through the cheap curtains allowed me to see Jamie jumping up from sleep in alarm at my sudden scream.
I immediately turned to the side, frantic to reassure myself from such a dream and see my son laying next to me.
My throat closed up and every single blood cell in my body dried up in a fiery burst of pain. I doubled over on myself and let out a strangled shriek, all the strength from my body suddenly drained.
Jamie had one leg out of bed, unsure of whether to stay put or come over to me. "What?" She asked, eyes wide and a questioning panic creeping into her voice. "What happened?"
A half-scream, half-sob, ripped itself from my body as I sprang into action, throwing blankets and sheets and pillows everywhere in a useless search.
"William," I screamed.
Jamie jumped up immediately and came to look at the empty scene. He was gone.
She looked around, eyes wide and panicked. "His diaper bag," She breathed, "It's gone. So is his car seat."
I looked every which way, screaming and trying to breathe in air that wouldn't stay in my shriveling lungs. I ran to the bathroom, searching every corner with my eyes before running back out to the front door.
I doubled over again, pain like I had never known crashing into my chest. "Ah," I shrieked.
Jamie was on me instantly, helping me to stay on my feet. "Calm down," She tried to soothe. She looked around again.
"The door is locked." She let go of me and pointed. "Look. See?"
I did. The swing bar lock was perfectly shut. Even if someone had picked the lock, they couldn't have opened the door from the outside with the double lock on.
"How, then?" I sobbed, clutching my sides. A sudden burst of panicked hysteria sent me unlocking the door and flying outside screaming.
"Someone," I cried, "Please...! Please help me!" I screamed, stumbling barefoot into the middle of the motel parking lot.
A woman with long blond hair and a backpack slung over her shoulder who had been walking on the sidewalk nearby looked over at me, alarmed at my pleas. She hesitantly took a single step forward before apparently deciding that I really did need help, and breaking into a concerned jog, came over to me.
"Are you okay?" She asked, eyes wide and alarmed.
I looked at her helplessly, tears streaming down my face in an unrelenting stream. "My son," I sobbed. "My son is gone. He was there last night and now-" Another hysterical scream broke my sentence, sending me bending over myself again in pain.
She seemed unsure if she should touch my shoulder or not, nodding and saying, "O- okay, miss, hang on, I'll call 911." And taking out a flip phone from her jean skirt pocket, she did just that.
It felt completely absurd to call the police. What could they do? They were never useful, especially when it came to missing people. I fell to my knees and screamed over and over and over again, the womans voice making no sense underneath my delirious cries.
/ / / / /
When the police got to the motel, the woman who had called them handed me a slip of paper. "That's my number. If you need anything, just call." She said, compassion dripping from her words. "I've got to get back to class, I'm late." And with that, she hurried off.
Through my puffy tear-dripping eyes, I could barely make out the name, 'Jessica Moore'.
Jamie was sitting next to me on the sidewalk in front of our room, rubbing comforting circles on my back.
While the police officer who would be questioning us soon spoke to the motel manager, Jamie took the slip of paper from my hand and murmured quietly, staring at the number, "Did she look a little familiar to you?"
I just sobbed into my hands, unable to think or speak or breathe properly, if at all.
After speaking with the hotel manager, a police officer came to take our statements. How he understood my words through the hysterical sobbing I'll never know.
The police man pulled Jamie to the side, a little away from me, probably so I wouldn't hear their conversation, but I heard what they said anyway.
He spoke in a low voice, "Look, I don't mean to alarm you, but if he was taken yesterday, I'm not sure we'll be able to find him."
Jamie looked at him questioningly, head tilted upward in a position that showed she was ready to recieve more information.
He glanced back at me very quickly and spoke even lower, "Well, today's Halloween. It's not uncommon that..." He paused, wondering if he should continue. Finally he sighed and said, "There are a lot of freaks out there doing satanic rituals and such. If her baby was taken, it wouldn't be out of the question to assume someone took him for their own sick games." He looked at Jamie confidentially, "Personally, I'm not from California, so this place is a lot wilder than where I was previously stationed. We'll be doing all we can, but-"
"Wait," Jamie stopped him. "What are you talking about? California?"
He stood up straighter, giving her a strange look. "Well, yeah." He tilted his head down at her and raised his eyebrows, "We are in Stanford, California."
Her eyebrows crinkled and she looked at him as if he had just grown another head. "What?" The wheels in her head were spinning. "What are you talking about? When we went to bed, we were in Denver, Colorado."
He froze, eyes narrowed. He glanced again back at me, then slowly turned back to Jamie. "We're going to have to take you back to the station for some drug testing."
Jamie's eyebrows rose. "You think we were drugged?" Before he could answer, she said reluctantly, "I guess that does seem like the only possible answer. But why would anyone want to drug us and fly us over to California, of all places?"
He frowned deeply. "That's what we're going to find out."
/ / / / / /
Many hours and needles in the arm later, we were released from the police station and told to go back to the hotel since we didn't have a permanent address. Although we had suggested that we might be safer in the station if someone really had drugged and kidnapped us, all the tests had come back negative for any strange substances, so they didn't have enough proof to keep us overnight and had "no choice but to send us home" until tomorrow. We were told they were going to keep "looking into it" and let us know if they found anything. When asked for a phone number, we discovered our cells were gone. We assumed they were stolen by whoever took William and transported us here.
When we got back to the motel, Jamie said she was going to step out to see if her debit card still worked. Strangely enough, whoever had stolen us away hadn't taken our wallets.
Some short time later, Jamie came back into the room, a new kind of energy in her body visible just from the way she walked through the door.
"Tessa." She said, shaking me from my depressed stupor on the bed I was on. "We need to talk. Now."
I looked up at her. My whole existence, the beautiful light in my life, was gone. Everything good in the world had died. What could possibly matter enough to be so urgent?
I tried to focus on every detail of her to keep my mind away from the hole I was rapidly sinking into.
"Did your card work?" I asked lethargically. Every muscle in my body felt weak and dead. Even using my voice felt like an effort.
"No. It wasn't even in my wallet." She said the words as if it was some giant breakthrough. Suddenly she waved a newpaper that I hadn't noticed was in her hand. "That's the point. Receipts, gamestop cards, everything with a date on it that I've had for less than three years is gone."
I stared at her, completely missing the point of what she just said.
"But look," She opened the Alice in Wonderland wallet I had gotten her on her birthday awhile back, "Pictures I've had for years are still here."
"So our kidnapper didn't want your family photos. So what." I said flatly.
"No, Tessa, look," She pointed at the date on the newspaper.
Friday, October 31st, 2005.
I stared at the print for a good two minutes before something in me shifted just then, as if some kind of alternate reality had come into my own. "That... What is that?" I asked, the stupor from the loss of William intertwining with the new stupor of confusion the date had brought up.
"Yeah. I asked the clerk in the lobby? It's really today's date." She said. She walked over to the window and opened the curtains, pointing outside. "And look. Look at the cars. NONE of them look newer than the kind that were around ten years ago. And didn't you see the clothes people are wearing? We're in the mid 2000's, Tessa. I don't know how we are, but we are."
I stared at her, mouth slightly agape.
She walked back to our bags and opened mine up. She pulled out a shirt with Dean Winchester's face plastered on it, with the caption, "No chick click moments". She held it up for me to look at. "This is still here. This is a mouthpiece to the fact we're from the future, considering Supernatural wasn't popular enough to produce T-shirts until..." She raised an eyebrow, "Well, I guess until Cas came in." She shook her head, "But that's not the point. The point is this shirt doesn't have any semblance or hint of a date on it. It could be from any time, and that's probably why it's still here." She dug through the bag again. "Same with this shirt." She pulled out my Once Upon A Time shirt with captain Hook on it. "Even though this show hasn't been invented yet, there's no date."
She shoved the shirts back into the bag. "So anything that we had that showed the true date on it is gone."
More tears slid down my face at a sudden realization. "William hasn't been born yet." I looked down at the floor. A sob escape from my lips. "I don't even have a picture." My voice cracked at the last word.
She came to kneel in front of me and rested both hands on my knees. "But this is good in a way, isn't it? That means William isn't dead or kidnapped or gone. He's just... Not here yet."
I threw my head back. "This doesn't make any sense. How did we go back in time?"
She stood up. "I don't know." She started pacing around the room, a hand under her chin in a thinking gesture. "But... Do you remember any of your parents' old phone numbers?"
I looked at her with an expression that told her the answer was obvious. "I don't even remember where I lived in 2005, much less do I remember anyone's phone number."
She sighed, frustrated. "Me neither."
Suddenly she stopped pacing, taking something out of her jeans pocket. She looked up at me.
I stood up and walked over to her, looking at what she was holding in her hand. It was the piece of paper with the name and number of the girl who had called the police for us earlier.
I stared at her. "You don't mean-"
"It's the only number we have. I think tomorrow we should call her and ask if we can rent a room or something for awhile. I know in 2005 my parents were still living in Oregon, and it was in the same house they live in now." She made a face, "Or... Then. Er.. Someday? Will live in? I don't know."
"That's great. But Jamie, we don't have money." I reminded her. "With spending this night in the motel on cash only, I've got two dollars and forty-eight cents to my name."
She sighed. "I know. But maybe she'll let us stay there for a little while, just until we get jobs. Then we can save up and head back to Oregon."
I felt completely drained and confused. From the crying, the emotional rollercoaster, and the impossible venture of wrapping my head around time travel, I was exhausted. "What other choice do we have, I guess?" I conceeded.
