Disclaimer: I don't own The Rocky Horror Picture Show

A/N: Originally, this was posted soon after I finished the story Life (not) At The Frankenstein Place. It's a direct sequel. I soon enough deleted it because it seemed 'wrong' to have real people in it. Now I've begun a few stories like that so it doesn't seem as bad. Anyway, I'll be posting all that's written so far. If anyone wants more, you know what to do...

My name is Laura Trent, though people called me Columbia' for many years. After the movie company. Yeah, I was weird as a teenager. Though I suppose I'm still pretty young - at the time this story begins I was 23 - I've grown up a lot in the last four years. So much weirdness happened. Looking back it would've made a damn good novel. I did keep a diary, of course... but that's irrelevant.

I should probably explain the events that led up to this.

For years I was a groupie. It was a stupid life full of sex, drug, and rock n' roll. Then I somehow got involved with a bunch of aliens, which was weird. There I lived at their castle in Ohio doing nothing useful for months. I was technically something of a sex slave to the 'master' of the house, whose name was Frank... but we won't go into all that. Eventually this other Earthling showed up. He was called Eddie and brought the life back into me. We fell in love, or so I thought, and eventually escaped the castle together. After a few weeks of randomly traveling with his long-lost father, who we thought wasn't anyone important, we ended up in DC. There was a bit of a shoot-out in this giant underground warehouse full of. It was like something out of that really great sci-fi film that came out back in '77. You know, the one with the giant space station? Anyway... we did some fighting, picked up a robot named nonHAL-asimov-42, went back to the castle, more weird shit happened, the alien I'd been sleeping with built a creation, some random Earthlings showed up, Eddie died, the aliens left, and I was now living in an underground bunker. Seriously.

Then, I was stuck looking after one of the random Earthlings who'd shown up. She was called 'Janet' and Frank had knocked her up. That woman somehow became my responsibly. The pregnancy made her act like a sixteen-year-old. After nine months of putting up with her she died in childbirth. So Janet was dead and the twins - her twins - were mine to look after. That sounds creepy. If anything it was a punishment inflicted by a particularly cruel god. I looked after these two children that weren't mine from the very moment they were born, to the point they sort of seemed like my children. At least the robot nonHAL-asimov-42 (aka Robby) helped. After a few years in this state of semi-calm things went mad again.

It began when Marcus (the guy who owned the warehouse) summoned me- and the twins- to Washington, DC. He refused to say why over the phone. Just that it was serious. That scared me, though enough strangeness had already happened that I was pretty matter-of-fact about it.

And so, we made that four and a half hour trip in Mr. Bradshaw's old van. Robby played one of his lullabies for the twins to make sure they would sleep. Sonny has a habit of saying 'aw we thewe yet' every five seconds. Though now that there more like toddlers than babies, it is a bit easier to handle them.

When we got to the warehouse, we entered through a perfectly conventional door (nothing like that awful trap door we fell through last time). Winslow showed us to a room that they apparently considered the living room.

After we'd all caught up and I'd introduced the twins, Marcus explained why he'd called us here: he'd heard news of Lord de Lordy plotting to find me.

I was more surprised to hear that de Lordy was alive than anything.

"I though you killed him," I said, as we sat there.

"We should've," Winslow muttered darkly.

Marcus sighed. "Well, we didn't. He escaped- from the cell I'd been holding him in- only a year or so ago."

"Why didn't you tell us about that earlier?" I asked, now quite annoyed.

"Because I was been under the impression that he'd quietly gone back to that planet of his and given up on messing with other planets. He did… for a while. NowI have news from one of my many contacts that he recently learned about two new rival heirs. Being the paranoid monster he is, he's bound to send people to kill them," Marcus explained.

Instinctively, I put an arm around each of the children. They also looked frightened now.

"We've got a few ideas, though. Ways to help keep them safe," Winslow explained.

I raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Suddenly, Winslow grinned. "We plan to send one child and you to London under false names. The other child will stay hear, and brought up under an alias. Since kids don't remember what happened to them as toddlers, they won't even know."

"Just sending me to London won't do much good," I pointed out. "De Lordy expects us to do something like that. You can't just give me a plane ticket and send me away! He'll find me quite quickly!"

"It's better than just simply giving you a plane ticket! You see, we're sending you to London in 1972. Six years back, so he really won't be able to find you. We're betting on the fact that he probably doesn't even know time travel exists," Winslow explained.

"And I'm pretty sure that he's only heard a rumor of a rival heir. It's not like he has any real proof. Also, he can't just go looking for people with a physical resemblance to their late father. As you've surely noticed, all alien 'physical appearance genes' are recessive," Marcus added.

Though I hated to admit it, they were right. This would be simple enough.

I suppose I just didn't want to be away from the kids. Since I've always cared for them- nursed them, even- they're my children. At least Winslow and Marcus would only adopt one of the twins. But being in a different country and a different year… that's scary.

"Winslow and I will take care of Sonny for a few years. And, if all goes as planned, he'll think you've only been gone a day! Time travels a funny thing."

That made sense, I suppose. I'd go back in time six years, live in London until it's 1978 again, and then come back to DC. To Sonny it would seem like mere days.

"Fine," I said quietly.

Winslow handed me a shoulder bag full of various papers and fake IDs. I didn't get much time to look at them, alas.

And then they showed us to a strange room. It was made of sleek metal on three sides. The forth wall was merely a strange forcefield that stung slightly when we walked through it. Once the three of us (Stella, the robot, and I) were inside, Marcus began pressing various buttons on an outside panel. This made me a bit more nervous. There was something freaky about being surrounded by that forcefield. It all felt like something out of a not-so-cheerful science fiction flick.

"What awe we doing, mommy?" Stella asked.

"Going to London. That's a city in England," I told her.

Suddenly, a flash of pure white light nearly blinded us… and then we found ourselves on a busy street corner in a bustling city. It appeared to be late afternoon.

"We are in the location he said we would be sent to," Robby said, after a moment.

He pointed to a newspaper that happened to be lying near our feet. Carefully, I picked it up and read the date.

"Wha' does it say?" Stella asked.

"We're in London. In 1972," I whispered in strange awe.

After only a minute or two, it dawned on me that I was standing there in broad daylight with a 7-foot-tall robot. And nobody nearby seemed bothered. This wasn't right. Had we been sent to another planet by accident?

"It's the wrong season, you know," a grumpy voice behind me said.

I turned around to see an older woman glaring at Robby. "You aliens aren't supposed to invade until Christmas! You've still got three months or so till then."

"Sorry. Er, well then… we're not invading yet," I said awkwardly. "Just visiting."

Muttering under her breath about 'aliens these days', the odd woman lumbered away. Later I learned that aliens were common in England and that the city was systematically invaded every Christmastime.

I decided to sit down on a nearby bench and go through whatever papers were in the shoulder bag. I knew that standing here gapping wouldn't do us any good. Thankfully, the first paper I pulled out happened to be about where I'd be staying.

Apparently a polite (according to the notes) young woman named 'Tricia Beeblebrox' was renting out a few rooms in her house to us. By strange coincidence, we happened to be standing on the very street her house was apparently on. Perhaps it wasn't a coincidence. The mad assortment of technology Marcus had was shockingly sophisticated.

"Come on," I said. "Robby, would you please carry Stella?"

She looked very tired, and the robot never seems to mind helping when it came to the kids. He's really sweet and can be very fatherly at times. By then we'd managed to reprogram him to not follow the Three Laws by that point (which is why I asked him- not told him- to carry Stella). That was too restrictive for him. After that re-programming surgery was complete he claimed he felt almost totally human. Apparently robots like feeling human...

When we got to the house, a woman in her early 30s greeted us at the door. She had blue eyes, light blonde hair, and an obvious fondness for colorful eye makeup.

"You must be Laurie Trent and company," she said, eyeing the robot.

"Yes. That's right," I replied nervously.

"Well, I'm Tricia Beeblebrox."

"Pleased to meet you," I said, shaking her hand.

We followed her into the house's cosy living room. There, Robby set Stella down on a couch. I sat next to her. Tricia, on the other hand, sat in a chair across the room. That felt somewhat alienating. Though her kind face and sensible style of dress gave me the impression she was just too professional to sit with us... whatever that could mean.

"So, the girl is half alien?" Tricia asked, getting right down to business.

I nodded. "Her father's an alien. Though I'm not her mother, I know her mother was 100% human. And very hysterical at times - though dear little Stella is much better behaved."

Tricia chuckled awkwardly. "That's interesting... I haven't actually met somebody like that before. That is, a child who's half alien."

"How can you be so nonchalant about all this?" I asked Tricia. "Aliens and robots, that is."

"Aliens are everywhere in this country. My husband's an alien, in fact! We don't pay much notice these days," Tricia explained as we sat down.

"Wait… you have a husband?" I asked.

"Yes. He's never around, though. That makes matters easier. But don't worry, he'll warn me a few days in advance if he plans to drop by," Tricia explained cheerfully.

We sat there in silence for a moment. I suppose nobody knew what to say. Though I wanted to hear more about this husband of hers I didn't want to annoy her the day we met. So I stayed silent. Everyone else also did until, finally, Tricia spoke.

"I'd better give you a tour of the house now..."

So, she did.

Apparently I'd be staying in one of the two guest rooms. There was a smaller 'child-sized' bed - well, crib - in the corner of my new room for Stella. A room in the basement was reserved for Robby. Since he doesn't actually sleep (being a robot), he doesn't really need a room. But she still gave him that room out of politeness. It gave him space for whatever electronics project he felt like working on and a place to go when he didn't want to be around others.

When I asked her why she was being so nice about all this, Tricia merely shrugged and said that she 'owed Marcus a favor'. The look on her face she mentioned him gave me the impression there were very close. Also, I couldn't help but wonder if he time travels all the time or something. How else could they have really known each other?

After she'd showed us around, I left Stella in her room to take a nap. Robby stayed and promised to keep an eye on her. Then the remaining two of us went back to the living room to discuss other things.

"Marcus said he'd made false IDs for you," Tricia said.

"I'm pretty sure they'd be in that bag," I told her, pointing toward the bag I'd been given.

"You'd better read through everything. Forgetting you own last name is unfortunate indeed," Tricia said darkly.

Rolling my eyes at how melodramatic she was, I began looking through the many papers. Most of them appeared to me instructions of various kinds. I guess he hadn't counted on Tricia being so helpful. Soon enough I found a basic summary of 'Lauren Scott'. Reading it almost made me cry. How true it all was! I suppose it had to be close enough to my real life to seem realistic. They didn't want me to seem like I was lying.

'Lauren Scott' (née Ross) is the 23-year-old widow of Edward Scott. After only a year of marriage he died defending her from a violent ex-boyfriend of hers. Though they didn't have children of their own, a mutual friend of theirs had a daughter they'd adopted once said friend died. Now she'd come to London in the hope of working backstage in theatres, since she'd done similar jobs before her marriage.

Even though I'd never married Eddie and he'd died before Stella was born, that story seemed almost as true as the truth. The unnamed 'violent ex-boyfriend' sounded just like Frank… indeed, he basically was a fictionalized version of Frank.

"Are you, er, alright?" Tricia asked, noticing the tears on my face.

I nodded silently. If I spoke I'd probably just get even more upset.

So, to distract myself, I began looking through other papers. There was a faked resume detailing the various backstage jobs I'd done. I really had worked backstage- though at concerts the bands I'd traveled with performed. Not at fancy theaters full of real, living actors. Yet, how different could it really be?

A lot more different than I'd believed, as I found out once I began my new job the next day.

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