Part 2
Don's FBI instincts quickly kicked in and he scrutinized the woman.
She looked young, maybe twenty years old, with a purple streak through her hair. She was a little taller than Don, with a willowy type of figure. She wore a white tank and boy cut jeans, her feet were bare. He met her gaze and saw more wisdom in her eyes than his father, or twenty of his fathers, ever could possess. He processed that information and decided she was somehow older than just twenty.
Don asked, in his best FBI interrogator voice, "Who are you? What is this place? And what the hell is that?" He pointed to the video screen.
She gave him a shy grin and said, "It's you. Huh? Full moon, right? Lightning storm?"
He gave her a puzzled look then replied, "Yeah. Full moon, looked like it had been dipped in blood, and there were heavy storms when I went to bed."
She sighed as she started to walk away. "Damn. You shouldn't be here. Well, no harm I guess. When you wake up you shouldn't remember this place."
Don moved quickly to stand in front of her. "And where is this place?"
"Ummm, well... Uh... How to explain?" She glanced around nervously. "Do you believe in Alternate Universes?"
"Uh, what?"
"You know, other dimensions, infinite possibilities of N….." Her voice trailed off as Don blinked in confusion. "Okay, you don't. Maybe you should listen to Larry more….. Anyway, consider this; when you make a choice there are consequences, other choices lead to other possible consequences. Example, when you quit baseball and signed up for the FBI exam that was one choice. What would have happened if you'd stayed with baseball? Did you ever think about that?"
He replied, uncertainly, "Okay? So what does that have to do with this place and these screens?"
"Well, this place records all of those possibilities, what could have been. All the possibilities of Don Eppes." One of her eyebrows rose. She asked, her lips curled in a grin, "You do know you're only in your underwear, right?"
Don looked down and saw that she was right. His cheeks flushed slightly at her amused gaze.
"Don't be embarrassed. I've seen it all," she said nonchalantly.
Don felt his cheeks turn redder. Never in his life had he been embarrassed to be naked in front of a woman
With a shrug, she said, "But if you want, you can put some clothes on."
"Uh, okay. Do you have any?"
"Oh, of course not." She giggled.
Annoyed, he replied, "Okay then, where do you suggest I get clothes?"
She smiled indulgently as if talking to a child. "Imagine what you want to be wearing and they'll appear. Like this." She closed her eyes and instantly, poof, her clothing changed from the casual jeans to a long flowing blue dress. "See? Easy."
He eyed her incredulously but said, "Um, okay." What the hell, he thought, and closed his eyes. He imagined himself wearing jeans, boots and a black tee-shirt.
When he opened his eyes, he was dressed just the way he'd imagined. "Huh, I can't believe that worked."
The woman grinned. "See, easy."
Now dressed, Don asked, "So, the screens. What are they?"
"Well, each of these one hundred and thirty eight screens represents the different possibilities of your life. Some people have more then one hundred and thirty eight, others have less. It just depends." She pointed to a screen. It read "Life with Kim Hall." "In this screen, your mom never died and you ended up marrying Kim Hall. Unfortunately though, it ended up in divorce."
Don watched the screen she had pointed at. His other self sat in his, what he guessed to be his, house and there was a photo of Kim and him from their wedding day on the mantel. He saw her walk onto the screen and tell him that her stuff was packed and she would be gone in a few minutes. She told him she was sorry for what she'd done, but it was over. His other self just sat there and didn't even look at Kim as she spoke.
The woman spoke, "Very sad. You tried to make it work but you were... what do you humans call it?" She tapped the side of her head. "Oh yeah, emotionally unavailable. When she needed you the most, you couldn't give her what she needed. So, she found it in the arms of someone else."
Don felt bad for the man on the screen, mostly because he knew that what the woman had said was the truth; he was as emotionally unavailable in this world as he was in that one.
Shaking the dark thoughts out of his mind he asked before he could dwell any more on that day, "Miss? What do you have to do with all this?"
"I'm your chronicler. I basically chronicle your life."
He raised an eyebrow. "You scribe my whole life down in that book? All one hundred and thirty eight of them?"
She laughed out loud, and it sounded like little silver bells. "Oh gods no! The screens record everything like a DVR. The book is just for me to jot down highlights of particular events." She laughed again. "Could you imagine trying to write one hundred plus stories simultaneously?"
Don answered sarcastically, "Yeah, I guess that would be too far fetched."
The Chronicler stopped laughing, pointed to another screen, and said, "This is the screen you're from. You can watch it if you want. Push that button and you can rewind to see past events, then fast forward up to the present. Oh, and you can't go past the present, no peeking into the future, you don't get spoilers."
He pushed the rewind button a bit, jumping back to about a week ago. He pushed play and watched the events of the last week unfold in front of his eyes. It was very unnerving to watch himself with his family, and then himself at the office. After a few moments, he found the whole thing too unsettling and turned away from the screen.
Concerned, the woman asked, "A little disconcerting huh?"
Don grunted. "You could say that." He turned slowly to glance at all of the screens. "So one hundred and thirty eight Dons?"
"Yeah."
"Why are those three turned off?"
Her eyes turned sad when she answered him, "Those you died in, so we no longer have to record them."
"Oh. How?"
"Uh, let's see. That one you died while working as a FBI Agent, that one as a child, and this one in a car accident with your brother Charlie."
Don replied, "Oh."
She muttered, "Yeah, well, trust me. Dying is a lot better than some of the other stuff you've gotten yourself into."
"What about this screen?"
She walked over to it and read the title "The Runaway. This one you were in an accident while with the FBI and you lost an eye. You're now a PI trying to work up a reputation. The case that you're working on now involves a missing teenage girl."
Don walked up to the screen and touched it when his face showed up on it. He asked her quietly, "Why do I look like I'm high right here?"
The woman sighed. "Cause you are. You're undercover and someone put something in the cookies. So if this isn't a warning to never try drugs, I don't know what is."
"What about these screens?" One read "Donny Dearest" and the other read "Breaking Free".
"Um, this one you got into a huge fight with your brother and, basically, you went to DC to work things out. In the meantime, you had your fingers broken trying to keep a foul ball from hitting Charlie in the neck. Also, your brother's life was in jeopardy over a case you and he solved together. The fight you and your brother had has mostly resolved itself, but I have a feeling your relationship and lives aren't out of the woods yet. I mean, you are laid up with a stab wound right now."
"A stab wound, damn. I really do get myself into some trouble."
"Oh yeah, you could say that."
Don pointed again to Donny Dearest. "And this one?"
Her eyes clouded over with pain as she said, "Oh, you really don't want to watch that one."
He asked heatedly, "And why not?"
"Please Don. It's truly horrible. I only watch it cause I have to check its progress."
"Tell me."
She sighed and pulled her arm out of his grasp. She walked over to a bookcase and pulled a book off. "I'm sorry Don. I can't let you watch it. It's too terrible. But this book has the highlights of what happened." She set it out on the table and opened it about a third way into it. "I'll make you some tea. You're gonna need it."
Don sat down and started to read from where she'd told him to begin. After about fifteen minutes had passed, he looked up at the woman. Her eyes were shining with tears for the pain that the other Don was suffering. She slid a cup of tea in front of him.
He said in a quiet voice, "Why would someone do that… My poor dad and brother."
He shook his head as if to rid himself of the knowledge of what he'd just read. "I'm acting like a toddler."
The Chronicler picked up the book and put it back on the shelf. She gave him a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder. "I tried to warn you."
"Yeah, you did. Does that woman go to jail for what she did to me?"
"I don't know yet… It hasn't finished unfolding."
"Oh. Can I help this Don out in any way?"
"No, you can't. You can only hope that things resolve the right way. That you regain what you lost from what she did and you can hope that the other Don isn't too resentful of the care that your family provided."
He ran his hands through his hair and thought to himself. He knew himself pretty well and if he knew how his family was caring for him, bathing him, and feeding him, he would be mortified. He said a silent prayer to all that was good to help him and his family through the rest of that ordeal.
"Don, just so you know, most of your lives are pretty good. They're fairly typical, with pain and joy in them. Trust me, there have been worse lives that have had worse done to them."
"How come that doesn't make me feel better?"
She shrugged. "Well it's true. Most of the time you're okay. Oh, and you are one of the very few that have one of your lives as a television show. It's called Numb3ers. You're played by Rob Morrow."
"Heh? My life is a TV show? Rob Morrow plays me? I couldn't' stand him as that doctor when he was on Northern Exposure, when I actually caught an episode."
"Yeah. Oh wait, why don't you watch this one for a while?" She pointed to a screen that was labeled Don and the Ghost Woman. "This is a good one, you just got married to the mother of your child, her name is Elisabeth but you usually call her Elle. She lived in a world of pain for a long time but your love saved her. In this world, you are the happiest I have ever seen."
A slow smile came over his lips. "Yeah? Show me."
She took his hand and led him over to the screen. She let it rewind for a bit and said, "Let's start it here, the first time you held your daughter."
"Daughter," Don whispered, as he turned his attention to the screen to see himself holding a newborn baby in his hands. It gave him chills. What he could have had and could still have in his life, a family of his own. "Thanks. Do you have a name?"
"Yes. The Chronicler of Don Eppes."
Disbelievingly, he replied, "that's your name?"
"Yeah. I really don't have any other purpose, so it fits."
"Well, I can't really call you that can I?"
"Why not?" Puzzled, she asked, "what would you call me?"
"I don't know. Uh, how about…" He thought for a minute about how she had tried to be kind to him, warning him not to want to know about the screens. How her eyes were wise and knowing but with a hint of humor. She reminded him a bit of his mother. "How about Margaret?"
She gave him a small smile and repeated the name. "Margaret. Margaret, meaning child of light." She smiled again. "I like it."
"Good." He nodded and turned his attention back to the screen. He watched the life of the other Don unfold before him and felt joy for this man, holding his child for the first time.