Disclaimer in part one
When Chuck could see again, his blood ran cold. What the fuck? He was sitting in a classroom – high school, by the look of it – with a teacher and half the class of kids looking at him expectantly. The formica surface of a school desk was cool beneath his hands. He no longer tasted lemonade.
"Neil?" the man asked, sounding expectant.
Chuck looked over his shoulder, expecting to see his son behind him somewhere, but behind him was only wall. He looked back at the man, who now looked vaguely familiar and was beginning to frown. When he spoke his voice was not his voice. It was Neil's. "Aw hell," he said, "what now?"
scene change
Neil staggered and nearly fell as his vision cleared. He'd been sitting, but abruptly found himself standing. In a kitchen area, with a chopping knife in his hand. Startled, he gripped the knife more tightly as if to hang on to reality. What - ?
He looked around cautiously. Oh, Kurt's place. At least he knew where he was. But how on earth had he got there? "Kurt?" he called, and his heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice. He glanced back at the hand holding the knife and this time he nearly dropped it. Pale hairs curled on the back of his forearm, and the back of his hand, which he should know like the back of his hand, belonged to someone else. "Kurt," he called, more urgently, almost tossing the knife onto a cutting board placed beside the stainless steel sink. He moved around the kitchen island into the living room and caught a view of himself reflected in the glass door covering a bookshelf. Kurt's face looked back at him, a dumbfounded expression on it. He stared, trying hard to keep his thoughts from freezing. It had to be something like that, he told himself. The voice, his arms, the feeling of not fitting his body correctly. He was inhabiting Kurt. Or something.
The doorbell rang. "Kurt," sang a female voice, "I'm here."
scene change
Kurt found himself walking, which wasn't what he'd meant to do, so he stopped. He blinked, but he was still not seeing his apartment. He saw and heard busy people around him. Cameras, lights, cables, computer screens. His first thought was of laboratories and synthetics, but no, this appeared to be a television set of some kind. He had no idea how he came to be there. He tried to remember. Had Gina/Jennie arrived? Had she brought some really good drugs? A pretty girl with a headset on walked by, purpose in her stride, giving him a curious look. He smiled at her. Yeah, she was right; he certainly didn't belong here. He was holding something – papers – so he looked down at them. And saw his hands. And his breasts.
He let out a startled squeal, made all the more unmanly by the high-pitched female register he uttered the sound in. The papers in his hands – black, female hands – went flying as he grabbed his hips, waist and breasts. Oh god, the breasts! "What the hell is this?" he yelled, panicked. Heads turned toward him, alarmed and concerned. He backed up, retreating, he hoped, back to something more resembling normal, but he wore impossible shoes and trying to walk backwards in them in a panic didn't go so well. He tumbled to the tiled floor from where he got a good view of the skirt suit he was wearing and the long shapely legs emerging from the skirt. People rushed to his aid, but he could only stare and repeat, in a voice SO not the right one, "No, no, no."
scene change
Sarah thought she must have found her seat while she was blinded, but when her eyes adjusted to the lights they faded and it was not the newsdesk she was seated at. Her hands gripped the yoke of an aircraft. She froze in pure terror. Her gaze darted around; instruments, a man in astronaut uniform seated on her left, switches above her. There could be no doubt – she was flying the space shuttle. Her breathing came in swift pants as her body threw itself into overdrive; adrenaline, perspiration, pounding heart, but despite all of it she remained locked in position, unable to move. The astronaut to her left spoke. "Burn complete."
Sarah's eyes would move. She looked at the man at the corner of her vision. Her thoughts raced. She'd covered space and aviation news for years now (well, not now, actually. In the previous three years that hadn't happened yet.) and she knew some things. She knew she was not sitting in the commander's seat – he was. Which meant he was the pilot in command and if he was deferring to her, she must be in training somehow. Also, she'd flown now on a space shuttle, and something here wasn't right. It didn't feel right, it didn't – smell right. "Angela?" he asked, his own gaze darting over the instruments with increasing urgency, "The burn is complete. The checklist?" Sure enough there was a checklist strapped to her thigh, but it wasn't going to do her a bit of good. She was still reeling from the name he'd called her. Belatedly she realized that her hands squeezing the yoke in a deathgrip were white. White hands. Holy shit. Her vision began to gray at the edges. Hyperventilating, she realized. Oddly, her thoughts still worked rapidly. She'd seen pilots – Chuck and Angela included – speak a ritual that insured no one was ever uncertain about which pilot was flying. She swallowed, opened her mouth, and managed to say, "You have the aircraft."