A/N: The ending of this one is in the works as I post the first several chapters; I thought I would share the opening with you now. I had a recent review that wondered how September 11 was going to play into my timeline, and for a while I had thought to write something that directly involved those tragic events; but in the end I chickened out: I didn't think I could do it the proper justice. But the date doesn't go unnoticed; this story is thus written in mind of all the innocents who lost their lives that day, and their survivors. Thanks to PDXWiz, jtbwriter, Harry2, BishopT and Kyryn, as always!
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§ § § -- October 22, 2001

"Is this kitchen completely empty of food, my Leslie Rose?" Christian asked a little plaintively, rubbing his growling stomach. He came to the passthrough that connected with the living room, leaning on the sill to stare at his wife. As usual, the butterfly mobile that seven-year-old Brianna Harding had made in school and given to the Enstads (as a "late housewarming present," the little girl had claimed), which hung from a hook at the top of the passthrough, brushed Christian's dark hair, and he cast it a slightly impatient look and ducked aside, just a little, to avoid the built-in shelving that held knickknacks and some of the framed photographs from Leslie's old room at the main house.

Leslie looked up in surprise from checking the mail. "Why do you ask? Didn't you have breakfast before you came to pick me up?"

"No, I couldn't…there's nothing here," Christian said. "I think we have a mission to go on, before we do anything else."

Leslie grinned. "Even the usual?" The usual, for Christian and Leslie, tended to mean going back to bed for about an hour after he picked her up at the main house and brought her home with him, and they rarely, if ever, slept during that hour. This Monday, though, was an odd exception to that. They had planned a grocery-shopping trip, as it was likely to be least crowded in town just now, and Christian had been prowling the kitchen for something to snack on so he wouldn't choose more items than they needed out of hunger.

Christian grinned back. "Well, there's that, but at the moment we're running low on edibles. I can't even find an apple. Do you want to do that now?"

"I suppose. We could stop by the main house on the way. I had the oddest request from Brianna," Leslie mused. "Maureen told me I could refuse her if I wanted, but the more I thought about it, the bigger a kick I got out of the idea. Her class is having a Halloween party next week, and somebody seems to have told her the story of Myeko's Halloween party where I was the Invisible Woman. Now she wants me to talk to Father about doing the same thing for her."

Christian stared at her. "There's a story I never heard. Come to think of it, in light of where we are and the apparent nature of the story in question, maybe I shouldn't ask."

"You aren't spooked, are you, my love?" Leslie teased him, crossing the room to meet him on the other side of the passthrough where they had placed a large wicker chair, an end table with a good reading lamp, and a padded basket containing six or eight paperbacks. She took his hands and leaned in toward him, speaking all the while. "Did you ever think about how stimulating it might be, kissing the Invisible Woman?"

"I don't know," Christian said, his doubtful look already being spoiled by the gleam in his eyes. "I think I prefer seeing the lips I'm trying to kiss." She laughed softly and they did in fact share a long, deep kiss, which was quite rudely interrupted by the ringing phone just as they were really getting into it.

"Geez," groaned Leslie. "I can't imagine who that could be."

"Let's ignore it," Christian breathed, pulling her forward, and she willingly acceded. But then the answering machine picked up, and when the greeting they'd recorded together gave way to the caller's voice, they came apart again.

"Sorry, I hate to bug you, I know you don't get much time together with your weird work schedules," Myeko's voice came over the little speaker. "But Noelle's class at school is having their Halloween party next week, and every time she comes up with a costume idea, it turns out some other kid already thought of it. But I don't have enough functioning brain cells left to dream up something original, since I never get any sleep on account of feeding the piglet every hour on the hour…and Nick's been swamped by panicky pet owners with all kinds of sick critters. Alexander just makes fun of her. So I got a little desperate. I guess you're gonna hate me for this, Leslie, but I told Noelle that story about how you got Mr. Roarke to let you use a potion at one of my Halloween parties so you could be the Invisible Woman, and ever since then she's been pestering the blankety-blank out of me to ask you if she can use it too. Yeah, I know, I know, but you can shoot me later. Just give me a call back and let me know, huh? Hi to Christian…talk to you later on."

"Herregud," said Christian in astonishment. "Is she always that talkative?"

Leslie started to laugh. "Yep, always. What a ridiculous dilemma! Wait till poor Noelle finds out Brianna came up with the same idea. There goes that friendship."

Christian eyed her, then straightened up. "You know, I think maybe I'd better hear this story after all. You can tell me on the way to the grocery store, and while you're at it, you can explain Halloween to me. I've heard of it, but we don't celebrate it in Lilla Jordsö and I know almost nothing about it. And," he went on as they made their way out of the house, "when Myeko says 'the piglet', I never know if she means baby Dawn or one of Nick's patients." Again Leslie burst out laughing, even as she nodded agreement with him.

§ § § -- October 27, 2001

Standing in the clearing watching their second fantasizing party disembark from the plane, Roarke glanced at Leslie with a mysterious twinkle before introducing the couple. "Stephen and Marissa Karadimas, from Cambridge, Massachusetts."

"They look like Ivy League conservatives," Leslie observed.

"An extremely good guess," Roarke commended her. "They are both deeply involved in history: Stephen Karadimas is an ancient-history professor at Harvard, and his wife is the curator of a museum devoted to the same subject. Their entire lives are quite steeped in it, to the point that they often seem oblivious to the modern world around them." He cleared his throat and his expression grew grave. "Unfortunately, the frightful tragedy that occurred on September 11 served to jar them back into the present day, and I am afraid it may have driven them even farther toward their mutual first love."

Leslie turned to stare at him curiously. "Why, what's their fantasy?"

"You'll find the premise familiar: we've done this once before," Roarke said. "They wish to travel to nine different countries—but in the pasts of those countries, rather than the present. Their objective is to return to simpler times, when humankind did not focus on wholesale destruction of its fellows."

"I do remember the first time we did this," Leslie said. "The summer I was seventeen, right? Catherine Lightwood-Wynton had all the fun, and I got to babysit her son, Simon the Obnoxious, who came back to chase tornadoes shortly before Christian and I met."

Roarke chuckled softly. "Indeed," he said. "Never fear, you won't be required to play escort for any offspring this time, as Professor and Mrs. Karadimas are childless. I think you will have a much better time with this fantasy." He winked in response to Leslie's grin, accepted his glass and raised it in the familiar toast. "My dear guests! I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island!"

‡ ‡ ‡

Within the hour Stephen and Marissa Karadimas were seated in the chairs in front of Roarke's desk, while Roarke took his own chair and Leslie settled beside him, having appropriated the chair from the computer desk. "If you'll indulge me," Roarke said to their guests, "I should like to hear exactly what you have in mind for this fantasy, and why you wish to have it granted."

"Oh, we've always been into history," Marissa said with a smile. Both she and Stephen were of Greek descent, with the dark hair and olive skin often characteristic of the Mediterranean peoples; they were still in their conservative attire, clad in button-down shirts, khaki pants and loafers. They appeared to be in their early fifties; both had just a touch of gray in their hair. "In fact, that's how Steve and I met. We were in the same anthropology class, and we found ourselves paired together for a project. It was our love of history that brought about our love for each other."

Leslie smiled. "How romantic," she said appreciatively. Marissa beamed.

Steve Karadimas chuckled shortly. "Quite honestly, Mr. Roarke, we never had much use for modern-day conveniences. Oh, I don't mean we live like Cro-Magnon peoples, but we just don't see the need to rush out and buy the latest electronic gadgets. We have computers only because they're needed in our work, but otherwise there's no point. We don't even own a microwave oven."

"I see," said Roarke. His tone was neutral; Leslie wondered what he really thought of these folks, who seemed willingly behind the times.

"I expect people look at us as eccentric," Marissa said, "but we prefer it this way. We live quiet lives and don't have a lot of meaningless interruptions from ringing cellular phones or inane entertainment-news programs. We haven't gone out to see a movie in almost twenty-five years, and we don't watch television, except for the news from time to time. We just pay our bills and live nice quiet lives."

"But then September 11 happened," Steve put in, scowling. "Three thousand needless, tragic deaths, at the hands of narrow-minded fanatics. Two of those planes flew right out of our own Logan Airport, Mr. Roarke. A colleague of mine was aboard the first one to hit the World Trade Center. Marissa and I spent the day reeling from the shock. Nothing in history could have prepared us for those terrible images."

"What's happened to mankind?" Marissa asked, staring at her folded hands in her lap and shaking her head. "Why are people so cruel to one another? What's the world coming to these days, that this kind of thing can happen?" She looked up. "I don't think I want to live in a world where such things are possible."

"That's why we're here," Steve said. "We want to get at least a glimpse of simpler times. Maybe we'll just pick a place, go back and stay there. No crazed maniacs who live to destroy everyone and everything that doesn't fit their rigid mindset. No mass death and large-scale destruction, and no rejoicing by savages over those deaths."

Marissa nodded. "Exactly. We want a refuge in history."

A silence fell in the room then, while Roarke considered the pair and they stared expectantly back at him. After some thirty seconds, Roarke smiled, ever so slightly, and Leslie knew immediately that they were in for a very interesting experience.

"You will find, Professor and Mrs. Karadimas, that history has its share of savage experiences not entirely unlike that of last month's attacks," Roarke said quietly. "Surely you two, of all people, are well aware of that. Your comprehensive knowledge of history, with its many wars and skirmishes—all the way from unnamed clans of the Ice Age to nations during World War II—should tell you far better than I can how futile it truly is to find an age devoid of brutality and cruelty."

Steve sat up sharply and leaned forward, glaring at Roarke. "Tell me, Mr. Roarke, how many of those wars and skirmishes you cite had as their goal destruction for its own sake. At least there was some stated purpose to them. The only reason for the World Trade Center attacks was to celebrate hate. Pure, mindless, all-consuming hate. No, we want to go back. I suppose we could demand our money back and leave, but we're not doing that—you can't get out of this deal that easily."

"Steve, take it easy," Marissa said, laying a hand on his arm. She looked at Roarke and Leslie. "I apologize…it's just that Steve's colleague was a good friend, and it's been very hard on him. He doesn't mean to be abrupt."

"We quite understand, Mrs. Karadimas," Roarke assured her. "Since you seem so determined to go through with this, then I will grant your fantasy." Steve brightened for the first time, and Marissa's face shone with excitement.

"Which countries do you want to go back to?" Leslie asked curiously.

Steve and Marissa looked at each other and then grinned at her, like a couple of kids about to descend on a mountain of Christmas presents. "We spent a lot of time talking that over," Marissa said, "and we had a terrible time narrowing it down. Mr. Roarke was very generous in telling us we could choose nine countries, and it took us weeks to decide which ones interested us the most. But we finally did. Naturally, we couldn't have a fantasy like this without visiting the Roman Empire!"

"Right," said Steve, "and Marissa wants to meet Queen Elizabeth I. Plus, I always wanted to see the impact of the discovery of the rainbow gems in Arcolos in 1536."

"And just for fun, we're looking forward to meeting the Polynesians who first lived in Hawaii, before they were discovered by Europeans," Marissa went on, "and it would be a treat to drop in on the Aztecs in old Mexico. While we're speaking of aboriginal tribes, we also want to see Australia before that was settled by Europeans, and the same for a Native American tribe. My favorites have always been the Narragansetts actually." She giggled like a little girl, and Leslie couldn't help grinning back.

"Russia under the czars is irresistible," Steve put in eagerly, "particularly Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great. And…uh, we had another one, Marissa…"

Marissa nodded vigorously. "Yes, it's to see the origins of Lilla Jordsö. We always thought those Vikings who settled that country were amazingly intrepid." Neither she nor Steve saw Leslie sit up in astonishment, or the look she traded with Roarke.

"That," Roarke said as if they hadn't mentioned this last at all, "is an intriguing list of choices. I see no reason we can't accommodate you and send you to all nine countries; you should be aware, however, that this will mean your fantasy will last throughout the coming week and end on Sunday evening, November 4."

"Perfect," said Steve and Marissa together. Steve added, "When can we start?"

"There are some final preparations to be made," Roarke said, "so if you will kindly return here in two hours, we will explain how your fantasy will work, and then send you on your around-the-world jaunt."

The Karadimases eagerly agreed, showered Roarke with profuse thanks and finally left the house. Leslie and Roarke looked at each other again, and then she suddenly grinned widely. "Lilla Jordsö, huh? Wow, Father, I can't wait to tell Christian about this one!"

Roarke laughed and arose. "Before you do, there are a few favors I must ask of you, so hold that thought for now. I have a few last-minute calibrations to perform, and you'll need to gather a number of accessories for me."