"Alan

"Alan?"

He looked to see who was calling him. As it turned out, it was Snow, with Jack firmly in tow. She nudged Jack, as if prompting him to speak. He frowned and hissed, "No, you!" at her. She fixed him with a death glare, making him wince.

Nervously, Jack spoke.

"We kind of had a look, and- well," –he shot Alan a nervous glance- "There aren't any records with you in them before eight years ago, so, um, we wanted to know…"

"Yes?"

"Where do you come from?"

Alan promptly answered, "The other world."

Jack and Snow were astounded, to say the least. Snow asked, "But how did you get here then?"

He smiled. "It's a long story. Shall I start from the start?"

Z

Alan began his tale.

"I was born as Ellen Smith in New York-"

Jack interrupted here.

"We already know you're Alan! You didn't need to tell us that."

Alan merely raised an eyebrow at him.

"I said E-L-L-E-N, not A-L-A-N."

Once again, the young pair were shocked.

"You used to be a GIRL?"

"Can you save it for later? Look, I promise I'll explain everything later, but just listen for now, all right?"

He began once again.

"I was born as Ellen Smith in New York thirty-one years ago. I was something of a drifter for the first part of my life, until my seventeenth birthday."

"What happened then?"

"I met a man in a bar and I eventually went home with him. We ended up dating for a while, and to cut a long story short, we fell in love and got an apartment together. We lived there quite happily until I came home from work one day to find he was gone without a trace, belongings and all. I was absolutely heartbroken.

One week later, I found out I was pregnant."

"You had a BABY?"

"Shut up, Jack. Yeah, I had a baby, but complications during the birth meant the doctors had to give me a C-section and remove my uterus too."

"What's a C-section?"

"It's when the doctor cuts you open and gets the baby out that way."

Snow winced and touched her belly in sympathy.

"Sounds painful…"

"It does, doesn't it? It's probably a good thing I was drugged up to my eyeballs at the time.

"Anyway, when I woke up, the doctor gave me some very bad news; while I was recovering from the C-section, somebody had taken my child from the hospital, and to top it all off, since the doctors had had to remove my reproductive organs and such, they had turned me into a fully functioning man without my consent. Stop laughing, Jack, that isn't funny. You too, Snow.

"Anyway, I started drifting again, and did so for a while after that, until I met a strange waiter in a café, who I ended up telling all my troubles to. After I had finished my story, he took me into the back room of the café –stop sniggering, Snow –where he told me he was going to take me eleven months back in time, where I was to meet myself and convince her to take me home and start dating me.

"He took me back in time, and I did as he said. Two months later, he showed up in my living room with all my things packed in a bunch of suitcases and told me that we were leaving this timeslot again. I tried to fight him, but I was outmatched and taken forward in time. Once again, I was heartbroken.

"The man took me forward eight months, to the hospital room where my newborn baby was being cared for. He distracted the nurses while I stole my child back.

"We then went back almost eighteen years. To my horror, he pinned a note to my daughter's swaddling that said MY NAME IS ELLEN SMITH and told me that we were going to leave her at the orphanage where I had grown up. When I asked why, he explained that my child was, in fact, me."

"Wait a minute, old man! Doesn't that make you your own parents?"

"Yes, it does."

Jack opened and closed his mouth a few times, then said, "That's just weird…"

Ignoring him, Snow asked, "So what happened next?"

"He took me to an office that laid outside of time and recruited me into the Temporal Guard. That's an organization dedicated to making sure that time runs its proper course with as few paradoxes as possible. My first assignment, after I had finished the physical training regime, was to go into time in the guise of a waiter and make sure I went back in time to fall in love with myself. Various assignments followed. My latest was to come to Mar Heaven and ensure that time ran its true course."

He turned back to Jack and Snow.

"So you see, I know exactly where I come from, therefore the true question is not where did I come from, but…

… Where did all you zombies come from?"

Lady Bad Luck: Oh my freaking God, I can't believe you wrote that. Even if it kinda makes sense in a weird, twisted, convoluted way.

Lady Good Luck: (chuckles) You have to admit, it makes perfect sense. Well, only if you stand on your head and squint, but the point still stands.

Yeah. Now we know why he looks slightly feminine in (at least parts of) volumes 2 and 3.

Exactly my point. :3D See, even the French smiley agrees.