Down the Rabbit Hole
Part one:
Violet Turner knew something bad was going to happen today. She knew something bad was going to happen when she woke up with a pain in her left leg. Last time that happened, her dog got hit by a car and the time before that she fell off her bike and had to get thirteen stitches. So she had a pretty good feeling that today was going to be a bad day.
When she dressed for work that morning, she opted to wear flats instead of heels. She didn't need to trip and fall down a flight of stairs. She decided to forego coffee or any hot drink that could scald her skin and she drove very cautiously to work. So far, nothing bad had happened. All she had to do was survive the rest of the day and she would be home free or so she hoped. She greeted Addison and Dell at the receptionist desk before heading to her office. She had a pretty light schedule. She had three patients in the morning and one patient in the afternoon at the psychiatric ward at St. Ambrose.
She turned around at the light knocking on her door. She grinned at her best friend.
"Hey Coop. What's up?"
"You're going over to St. Ambrose later today, right?" He gave her his best puppy dog eyes.
"Yeah. What do you want Cooper?" She said, seeing right through his act.
"So I need to give these hospital forms to Cruella, but I really don't want to see her Vi. And I know what you're going to say; it's been almost two months and I should be able to be an adult and face her, but I don't want to ruin a good day."
"Cooper," she warned.
"She's just going to yell at me," he exclaimed
"Oh, and she isn't going to yell at me? She hates me even more now. I'm the one who told you about her secret practice upstairs. I'm pretty sure she's intent on making my life a living hell."
"Yeah, but you didn't have a relationship with her."
"Yeah, well, I'm not sure you did either," she said while snatching the file out of his hands.
"I'm going to ignore that because you're helping me out. Thanks, Vi."
The rest of her morning passed peacefully. She saw each of her patients without a single bad thing happening. By the time lunch rolled around, she forgot about waking up this morning with a pain in her leg. When lunch was over she looked at the file Cooper had given her again. It was no secret that Charlotte hated her guts, even more so now that she had ratted the blonde out to Cooper. But seriously, what kind of girlfriend hides the fact that she has a competing practice right above her own boyfriend's head? A terrible one, that's what.
Besides being a sucky girlfriend, Charlotte was mean with no people skills and had an accent that burned through your eardrums like acid. Pretty much everybody avoided her. Violet was almost certain that the blonde had no friends. God, who would want to be her friend?
She sighed, picked up the file and headed to St. Ambrose. She stopped at the nurses' station on the first floor and asked for the blonde's whereabouts. She was in her office. Great. Because she wanted to be trapped alone in a room with only Charlotte. She thanked the nurse and headed to the third floor.
She knocked on the door and entered without bothering to wait for the blonde's response. Charlotte was going to yell at her anyways. Why not give her a reason to?
Charlotte scowled at her as she strode across the room and dropped the file on the blonde's desk.
"These are from Cooper."
"Why couldn't Cooper bring these here himself?"
"I don't know Charlotte probably because he didn't want to see you."
Charlotte let out an irritated sigh before picking up the file and handing it back to her. "Well, tell Cooper to bring them himself."
She took the file back and then dropped it back on the desk.
The blonde stood up abruptly and glared at her. "Take the folder, Turner."
Violet leaned in a little closer. "Make me."
Charlotte rolled her eyes. "Why can't we just treat each other like adults?"
"Because you're not tall enough," she quipped.
"You're a child. Now, just take these papers back," the blonde said while shoving the file into her hands.
Violet stood back and let the file fall to the floor. Papers scattered all around. If Charlotte was going to call her a child, then she would act like a child.
The blonde was furious. "Seriously, Turner?"
"Yeah, seriously. So you can just keep the damn file. He doesn't want to talk to you. He doesn't want to see you. You were a shitty girlfriend and you're not that great of a person either. So just do everyone a favor and disappear."
God that felt good to say. She had wanted to tell Charlotte off since before she and Cooper were a thing. The blonde opened her mouth and then closed it.
Charlotte pushed up the sleeves of her lab coat. "You wanna fight Turner? Is that what you want?"
The blonde glared menacingly at her and took a threatening step forward. She was okay with a verbal fight with the blonde, but she was not ready for a real fight. Sure, Charlotte was small, but Violet was pretty sure that the blonde could take her. Now she was really regretted saying what she said. The blonde took another step towards her and she couldn't tell if Charlotte was bluffing or not.
She scrambled backwards and in her rush to get away from the blonde she slipped on one of the loose papers that had fallen out of the file. The next few seconds felt like a lifetime. She could feel herself falling, yet could do nothing to stop it. Her head smacked Charlotte's desk on the way down. A brilliant white flash of pain obscured her view for a few seconds and then all she could see was Charlotte's face looking worriedly down at her.
"Dr. Turner! Violet can you hear me?"
And then everything went black.
0oo0oo0
Violet groaned and tried to move a little before opening her eyes. She remembered being in Charlotte's office and she remembered the argument and then falling. Did she pass out? She blinked her eyes open and then a second later closed them.
Too bright.
She waited a whole minute before trying again. It didn't hurt as much this time. She noticed that she was on a bed, her bed, in her room. She must have been out longer then she thought. She sat up slowly and winced. Her head hurt, but not as much as it should. She thought that was a little strange, but stopped wondering why that was when she heard the toilet in her master bathroom flush.
Cooper must have brought her home. That was the only reasonable explanation. She relaxed back into her pillows. She looked around the room and frowned. Something was off. Her room was different. There was a second set of drawers on the left side of the room. Another side table had been added to the other side of the bed and there were different pictures on the walls.
Did someone redecorate while I was out?
Something sparkly on her hand caught her attention. A ring. She held her hand up in amazement. A white gold wedding band with a huge princess cut diamond rested on her ring finger. Maybe she didn't hit her head. Maybe she got really drunk and married someone in Vegas instead. She got off the bed and on unsteady feet made it to her dresser mirror.
"My hair," she whispered.
Her long curly locks had been cut shorter. It looked pretty good actually, kind of sexy. She decided that she liked it.
"Hey, you're up."
She jumped at the voice and whipped around quickly to see Charlotte King standing in her bedroom.
The blonde smiled and rubbed her belly. "Your baby keeps jumpin' on my bladder."
She gaped. She could see a small, but prominent bump under the blonde's hand. Apparently the prickly blonde was pregnant? When the hell did that happen? And she said your baby as in the baby was her's. That wasn't even possible.
"Dr. King!" She took a couple steps back. "What are you doing in my house?"
Concern flooded the blonde's eyes. "Violet, honey, what's wrong?"
Charlotte reached forward for her and she jumped out of reach. Slowly, she backed up until she hit a wall.
"What's happening? Why is my room different? Why are you here in my home and when did your hair get so long?"
Charlotte frowned. "I guess you hit your head harder than we thought. Do you remember that? Hittin' your head?"
"Yeah, I hit it this afternoon. I was at your office and I slipped on paper."
"That was yesterday afternoon. I brought you home and you've just been sleepin' like a log all day."
She licked her dry lips and glanced around the room again. "You didn't answer my question. Why are you here Charlotte? You hate me. I'm pretty sure you were about to kick my ass before I fell and hit my head. What's going on?"
"Violet, this is our home and I'm your wife. We're having a baby. Do you remember that," the blonde asked gently.
"My wife," Violet sputtered. "My wife? You can't be my wife. I hate you. You're Cruella. You broke my best friend's heart. We can't be married! I'm not even gay."
The look on Charlotte's face was heartbreaking and it made her feel like a horrible person. Everything was so messed up.
"Honey," Charlotte said gently. "Calm down. Can you tell me what day it is?"
She took a deep breath to calm herself. "It's March 11th."
The blonde raised an eyebrow.
"2009," she added after Charlotte's prompt.
The blonde frowned.
"What? What's wrong?"
"Violet, its March 11th, 2012. Oh, sweetie you have amnesia. You don't remember anything from the last couple of years, do you?"
"Amnesia?" She said, not convinced. "I don't have amnesia. I'm dreaming. That has to be it. This isn't real." She squeezed her eyes shut and thought of home, her real home. If it worked for Dorothy, then it would work for her.
As luck would have it, when she opened her eyes Charlotte was still there and still pregnant.
"Oh, god. I'm still here."
The blonde chuckled.
"This isn't funny," she snapped.
"Sorry. You're right it's not." The blonde approached her again. This time more cautiously. "Come here."
She darted around Charlotte before the blonde could put her arms around her.
"Okay, you need to stay away from me. Something is wrong here. None of this is real. I know that because I would never marry you. You are the most horrible person in the world. You are mean and bossy and you make my life a living hell."
Charlotte gasped. "Violet"
She ignored the blonde. "Where's Cooper? I need to see him." Her breathes were coming in short and ragged and she was beginning to feel a little dizzy. "Get me Cooper."
"Okay, I'll get him. Just sit down, okay. I'll call him right now."
She collapsed on the bed and watched the blonde take out her cell and make the call. Once, the blonde was done with that she made another call to someone named Amelia. What was happening? She couldn't have amnesia. It didn't feel like she forgot anything. There wasn't a blank in her mind with a whole chunk of time missing. She felt like she had jumped forward in time. Did she time travel? Was that even possible?
"He's coming," Charlotte finally said to her. "And when he gets here, we'll go to St. Ambrose and have Amelia check you out."
"Sure, but nothing's wrong with me. And who's Amelia?"
"You don't remember her, do you? She's a neurosurgeon who works at the practice with us."
"With us? You work at Oceanside now? Are you still Chief of Staff too?"
"It's a long story, but yes. And yes I'm still working at St. Ambrose too, but I'm thinking about resigning from that job for this little fella," Charlotte said while patting her belly.
She nodded and then closed her eyes. Definitely too much to deal with.
Above her she could hear the blonde sigh. "You rest. I'll come get you when Cooper gets here." There was a moment of silence where she thought the blonde had left, but then Charlotte spoke again. "I know you don't believe it right now, but I'm your wife and I love you more than anything. I became a better person because of you."
And with that the blonde left.
