A/N: This one may seem a bit of a throwaway, but it serves a dual purpose. I had a review that asked about Leslie and Christian—perfect timing since I had meant to put a subplot involving them in this story anyway! Thanks to jtbwriter for the extra push, and as always, thanks to Harry2 and Terry L. Gardner for their faithful and ever-welcome reviews. I promise that eventually, Leslie and Christian's story will be resolved one way or another in the not-too-distant future!

§ § § -- September 12, 1997

"Are you certain you're ready for your weekend off, Leslie?" Roarke asked on the front porch on the morning of the second Saturday in September. "You seem reluctant to leave."

Leslie glanced at him, looking vaguely rattled, he thought. "Why are you asking me? You're the one who insisted I go," she said.

"I think you should, yes," Roarke said. "But there's something you aren't telling me, isn't there?"

"I'm only going to Japan, Father," Leslie said with some exasperation. "And I don't see the fuss. Katsumi recommended the trip to me, and I thought it sounded like the perfect destination. If I'm nervous, it's just because I expect to encounter culture shock."

Roarke's gaze lingered on her, and he knew she could read the doubt in his eyes; but she refused to say any more. "All right," he gave in with resignation. "You're off the hook for the moment, Leslie Susan, but that's only because we must meet the plane." He led the way down the porch steps as the car pulled up.

Leslie relaxed as Roarke set about the business of the morning, and after their first guests had been introduced, she watched a fortyish woman with dark hair, wearing a full-skirted dress in tropical reds, greens, yellows and turquoises, step out of the plane and start down the dock. "Hey, I think I know her," she exclaimed suddenly. "That looks like Melanie Downs, the famous author!"

"It is indeed," Roarke said. "Presumably you've read some of her material?"

"A couple of the books, yes," Leslie said. "Maureen's a particularly big fan; as a matter of fact, she's the one who told me about the movie deal."

"That movie deal is the reason Ms. Downs is here," said Roarke. "Hollywood has asked her to help choose a suitable actor to play the role of her extremely popular hero, Julian Noble. However, she has not the slightest inkling as to who might be best suited for the part."

"Why not?" Leslie asked. "It sounds easy enough to me. Just pick the guy who comes closest to whatever the character looks like."

"Therein lies the problem," Roarke told her. "Ms. Downs has no idea whatsoever what the character looks like."

Leslie gave him an incredulous stare. "That makes no sense at all," she protested in disbelief. "She created the character! How can she not have even the most basic mental image of what he should look like?"

"A very good question, my child," Roarke said wryly. "In any case, in the face of this fact, she has come to us asking to bring Julian Noble to life for one weekend, in order to help make her choice easier."

"Wow," said Leslie, eyes widening. "It almost makes me sorry I'm leaving this afternoon. You're going to have to tell me all about it!"

Roarke grinned and accepted the glass the native girl brought him, raising it and calling, "My dear guests! I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island!" Melanie Downs mirrored his grin, hoisted her own glass into the air and then took a hearty swig from it, clearly confident of the success of the weekend ahead.

‡ ‡ ‡

She was still holding the almost-empty glass when she stepped down from the foyer into the study not quite an hour later. Roarke looked up and gestured at a chair, his usual welcoming smile strangely absent. "Please have a seat, Ms. Downs. Leslie, since you are standing over there, you might bring me that small silver box beside the teapot there."

Leslie, running down a checklist for her trip, immediately put down the pen and paper and brought the box to her father while Melanie Downs made herself comfortable in one of the leather chairs. "Here, Father, do you need anything else?"

"Yes, I'll require your assistance," he told her and turned his attention to Melanie. "Please, Ms. Downs, forgive my lack of understanding…but I am afraid I simply can't believe that you don't know what your own character looks like!"

Melanie promptly turned red and swirled the dregs of her drink in the glass to avoid his gaze. "You're not the only one, Mr. Roarke," she murmured uncomfortably.

"After all," Roarke went on, slowly taking his seat, "you are the creator of this man, and as far as I know, no author tells a story without providing at least a basic description of the characters. You seem to have achieved the dubious honor of being the first. How can it be that you've never described what Julian Noble looks like, or what sort of personality he has? These are characteristics that are entirely under your control; surely you must have even one or two attributes to assign the man!"

Melanie shrugged helplessly. "Honestly, Mr. Roarke, I really never thought about it. You see, Julian Noble is primarily an action hero, although his exploits are geared to appeal to female readers. He takes on top-secret missions and carries them out undercover, and in the process he carves a wide swath through the ranks of sophisticated single women he meets in his work. There's an emphasis on the romantic aspects of his work and his liaisons with the women he meets—almost an action/romance genre, I guess you'd call it. There's never been any real need to talk about what he looks like."

"It's true, Father," Leslie said. "I've read two or three of the books, and Julian Noble is a very vague, unknowable sort of guy—always moving in the shadows. If I have the tone of his affairs right, often even his women don't really know what he looks like. It's as if he always operates in the dead of night to avoid being seen. My impression was that his looks and personality traits are left to the reader's imagination."

Roarke frowned. "An interesting tactic, Ms. Downs, and one that apparently works very well, considering your great success. However, it presents a problem to me. In order to bring Julian Noble to life, I must have some basis from which to begin. Not knowing what he looks like, or what sort of man he is, is a great hindrance to my ability to fulfill your fantasy." He leaned back in his chair and swiveled in it a few degrees, his gaze moving in the general direction of the open French shutters but not focusing on anything concrete. "I am not at all certain I can accommodate your request."

Melanie leaned anxiously forward in her chair. "But Mr. Roarke, if I knew what Julian looked like, I wouldn't have had to come here in the first place!"

Roarke didn't move, but Leslie laughed a little. "That makes a nice catch-22 situation, don't you think?" Her gaze turned sympathetic. "Why don't we try something here? If you absolutely had to come up with a bare-bones description of the man, what would you say?"

Melanie stared at her in surprise. "If I had to?"

"You kind of do right now, in fact," Leslie pointed out. "Like Father said, there has to be some foundation for him to work with. But don't think really hard about it—just throw a couple of things right off the top of your head. Just take a deep breath, close your eyes and say the first thing that comes to mind."

Melanie shrugged. "I'm willing to try anything. Here, would you hold this?" She handed Leslie her now-empty glass and resettled herself in the chair, then sucked in a loud breath and shut her eyes while Roarke and Leslie watched her. "Well, Julian would have black hair, so black that it shines blue in the light, and he'd be lean and about average height, and he'd have graceful hands with long fingers…" Her voice trailed off, and a moment later she opened her eyes. "I almost had a real image of him there, Mr. Roarke."

Roarke smiled for the first time. "Since you now have a starting point, I may be able to enhance that image." He displayed to Melanie the little silver box that Leslie had given him, then lifted the lid to reveal a pink capsule about the size of a prescription pill. "If you would swallow this, it will help me to derive a clear image from your imagination."

"What, you're gonna read my mind?" Melanie asked.

"Not exactly," Roarke said. "With your permission, I will merely lay a hand atop your head and extract the image enhanced by this pill."

Oh." Melanie grinned. "Sounds like a mind-meld right out of Star Trek. Okay, if I could maybe have some water, I'll take it."

Leslie took Melanie's glass over to the table and poured some water into it from a crystal decanter, then brought it back to Melanie, who made short work of swallowing the capsule. As soon as it had gone down, Melanie hiccupped loudly, slapped a hand against her chest and grinned sheepishly at her hosts. "Excuse me, Mr. Roarke." Then her eyes popped wide for just a moment before she fell back in her chair as if suddenly asleep.

Leslie gave a start of alarm. "Father, what'd you do to her?"

"There's no harm done, Leslie," Roarke assured her. "Quickly, close all the shutters." She set about swiftly carrying out his request while he arose, went to stand behind Melanie's chair and gently set one hand palm down on the top of her head.

Leslie came to stand by the desk and waited, watching intently, while Roarke closed his eyes and the room fell dark. Roarke and Melanie were centered in a pool of white light which shortly became shot with brilliant colors and the occasional odd image. The colors and images swirled as if in the midst of a tornado, slowly rising all the while, then floating away from the two still figures to drift lazily to the floor. Once the blob of color got there, it whipped around and around in slowly rising circles, revealing a human figure from the feet up as it climbed into the air. In about fifteen seconds, the form of a man was visible. The colors vanished, Roarke opened his eyes, and the room returned to normal lighting.

"Ms. Downs, look in front of you," Roarke requested.

Melanie came back to consciousness with a violent start, then stared at the man who stood in front of them with a greatly confused look on his lean, spare features. He was a very attractive-looking rogue, dark from head to toe: he had the black hair that Melanie had described earlier, brown eyes, and skin of a natural tanned color. In fact, his clothing and shoes were black as well.

The man shook his head hard a few times as if to clear it, then took bewildered stock of his surroundings and the three persons who stood watching him. Their gazes got to be too much for him and he demanded, "What the hell is going on here?" He spoke with a trace of British accent in his primarily American speech.

Roarke smiled faintly. "I apologize for the inconvenience, sir; but there is someone here who wishes to meet you. Melanie Downs, may I introduce Julian Noble."

Julian Noble scowled at him. "How do you know me? Who are you, anyway? And am I supposed to know who Melanie Downs is?"

Melanie stood up and eyed him with great interest. "So that's what you're supposed to look like, huh? I guess I have a better imagination than I thought. I'm your creator, Julian. My name's Melanie, and I'm the one who sent you on all your wild adventures and romantic escapades." She extended a hand.

Julian ignored it, staring at her. "What're you, the head of Intelligence? Are you the one I can blame for that time I broke my leg parachuting out of an exploding helicopter?"

Roarke and Leslie looked at each other in astonished amusement, while Melanie gave a mildly embarrassed shrug. "I actually thought that was a pretty cool adventure. It sure brought in one heck of a boatload of fan mail."

Julian threw his hands in the air. "I'm starting to feel like I fell down the rabbit hole. Would anyone in here be capable of giving me a coherent explanation?"

"Forgive me," Roarke said apologetically. "But you see, you are the popular and very widely-known hero of a best-selling series of books written by Ms. Downs here. Hollywood has expressed an interest in making a movie of one of the books, and we needed to know what you looked like so that Ms. Downs can choose a suitable actor to portray you."

Julian's annoyance faded into amazement. "Unbelievable. And who are you that you know all this?"

"My name is Roarke, and you are standing in my combination home and office on Fantasy Island—my island. The young lady beside the desk is my daughter and assistant, Leslie Hamilton." Roarke folded his arms over his chest and regarded Julian with an easy calm tinged with lingering amusement. "Who, by the way, is not available."

Julian, who had been eyeing Leslie, turned back to Roarke and shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "Protective father, huh? I've run into my share of those, too. Any women here who are available, then?"

"Me, for one," Melanie said immediately. "I only just got here myself, and if you'd like, we could look around the island together."

Julian regarded her with something other than irritation for the first time and seemed to like what he saw. "I see. Well, then, since you offer, by all means, lead on."

Melanie beamed and turned to Roarke. "Thank you, Mr. Roarke, thanks a million. You really pulled it off. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this!"

"You're quite welcome, Ms. Downs. Do enjoy yourselves, won't you?" Roarke invited graciously, smiling. Both Julian and Melanie nodded at him and departed the study; on their way out, Julian slung a casual arm across Melanie's shoulders.

Leslie grinned when they were gone. "You know something, Father, Julian Noble strikes me as a rake. I have a feeling he's going to cut as wide a swath across Fantasy Island as he does in Melanie Downs' books…and I'm sort of sorry I'm going to miss it."

Roarke laughed. "I'll be certain to keep you informed of the events in your absence. I suggest that right now you hurry and finish packing—you are scheduled to leave on the one-o'clock plane, and I'm sure you'll want time for lunch."