Disclaimer: Fanfiction: For love and (not) profit.

Discover That I had Not Lived

Chapter 2

He knew. In that brief period between waking and opening his eyes Charlie knew. This was not his bed. This was not his house. And somebody was here with him. Years of half drunk nights leading to awkward moments had taught him to pick up these things right away, a sixth sense for one-night stands. He could hear a shower running, the sounds of a radio, muffled behind walls. For one crazed moment he thought he must have slept with Jeannie, followed her back to her apartment. But he remembered, he could remember going back to his apartment and going to bed.

But he was not in his bed or his apartment and he started to doubt what he remembered. He remembered dinner with Neil, he remembered drinking but it's not as if he even had that much. Then another thought occurred to him, what if he had sleep with Neil. It seemed unlikely, not only because he distinctly remembered leaving him at the restaurant but also because Neil didn't do one night-stands. Instead he filled the void in his heart with romance, trying to fall in-love with one poor Todd stand-in after another, in love only with the idea of love.

Reluctantly he opened his eyes, half praying he was at Neil's house because at least that outcome was better than having no clue where the hell he was. It was not Neil's place though, that was abundantly apparent. He sat up and out the window he could see a tree. An actual tree which startled him as he had already decided that he must have been in Jeannie's apartment, on the 26th floor, in the middle of the city. Alright scratch that.

He was getting scared, which was stupid but he couldn't help it. Charlie was completely and utterly terrified because he didn't know where he was and what'd happened. Despite the fact that remembered, he remembered each and everything he had done last night he had no clue. Briefly he wondered if maybe he had been drugged, but dismissed that as crazy.

The shower shut off. Charlie braced himself half afraid of the consequences and half relieved that he would at least know what had happened. But he was not relieved at all when Steven Meeks of all fucking people walked into the room, hair damp and a towel around his waist, and if Charlie wasn't so fucked terrified and confused he would have ogled him. So, okay maybe he had ogled him a little, but he still felt as though he had been punched in the chest and couldn't catch his breath.

"Mornin'" Steven mumbled, like this was completely normal. As if he hadn't not seen Charlie in almost 10 years and then had a one night stand with him. "Shower's all yours."

"Huh?" Charlie said intelligently.

Steven wasn't paying attention. He glanced into the wardrobe, one of those IKEA things with a dozen little cubicles for ties and shoes and the whole bit. "Steven." He said, slowly, measured, trying not the let the panic come through his voice. "What exactly happened last night?"

He turned away from the wardrobe to stare at him, "What?"

Charlie gulped, "I mean...I can't remember what happened last night. At all." He really wished Steven would just hurry up and put a goddamned shirt on.

"Charlie, I really don't have time for this, and neither do you. Please, can you just get ready and come help me with the kids?"

What. The. Fuck.

"You have kids!" He exclaimed. Jolting out of the bed.

Steven scoffed, "Yeah, sure first thing in the morning they're my kids." There was a crash outside in the hallway and then the sound of children laughing. "Charlie, can you please go deal with your sons."

Okay, he had definitely been drugged.

Steven pulled on a t-shirt, then a soft looking V-necked cardigan and tan khakis. Despite his mounting fear and confusion Charlie couldn't help but look at him. He looked so...grown-up. He was clean-shaven ("Gingers and facial hair do not mix well" he had told Charlie once) and his hair looked pretty much the same as always, but there was definitely something there that Charlie couldn't remember. Though his impression of what Steven was like was no doubt clouded by how they had broken things off.

He caught Charlie staring at him, "Are you okay?" He walked over and placed a hand on his forehead and Charlie tried not to flinch away.

"Fine" He choked out.

"Alright," There was another loud crash, "I guess I'll go deal with that. Don't forget to make the lunches when you're done." He gave him a kiss, just a quick one, the same hello/goodbye kiss that he had always given Charlie and it wasn't so much sexy as it was affectionate, but his breath hitched just the same.

Steven walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. "Byron!" His voice came through the door muffled.

"It wasn't me it was Sebastian!" A second voice shouted.

A third followed, "It was not!"

Charlie lost it. He crumpled to the floor against the stupid IKEA wardrobe and put his head between his knees breathing panicky. "Fuck." He muttered, "Fuck, fuck, fuck fuckity, fuck." It didn't make him feel any better. He had to get out of here, get home and find out what the hell was going on. He grabbed a pair of jeans off the floor, they were probably Steven's but he didn't particularly care. He didn't even bother changing out of the shirt he had slept in deciding that looking rumpled and crazy didn't really matter if that's exactly how he felt.

Standing he opened the door, it lead down a short flight of stairs and into a hallway with a railing on one side and three doors on the other. He rounded the end of the hallway and walked down a second flight of stairs, Charlie found him face to face with a little girl. She stared up at him briefly, "Hi daddy." She said and then made her way up the stairs.

That was all the incentive Charlie need to pull on a pair of shoes he found by the front door and head out of the house as quickly as possible.

He wandered around, not really heading anywhere particular. It took him a few blocks but it suddenly sprung on him. He was near his house. Not his house now of course, but the house he had lived in after his parents had divorced. He was in Burlington, Vermont, right near his old neighborhood for christ's sake. He knew if he took a left past the next set of lights he would end up at the good Greek diner, and if he headed southeast that he'd end up at his old house.

He also knew how to get to the hospital.

So apparently they'd moved the hospital since he'd last been. Of course he discovered this after having walked for almost 3 miles towards the more urban part of town. He cursed, what had once been the hospital was now a condo-complex. Forgetting his pride he found a phone booth and looked up hospitals. He picked the closest one, looking at the address not the name and headed out. It took him almost an hour to get there, a cluster of orderlies leaving for their lunch break as he passed through the automatic doors.

He walked up to the counter of the emergency room. "Hi," He said to the nurse on duty, a middle aged man in tie-dye scrubs. "I think I've been drugged."

The guy looked up at him, gave him the once over and then handed him a clipboard. "Fill this out please." But there was a hint of surprise in his voice and Charlie had hoped that he may not have to wait around all day to see a doctor.

Turned out it's wasn't enough to just say he'd been drugged though. "Look," he said to the nurse who had taken over manning the booth after tie-dye had left. "I've been drugged or something. All I want to do is get a blood test and go home."

"And I'm trying to tell you that you have no symptoms to suggest such and therefore I am not putting you on the priority list." The nurse said.

"I woke up this morning and couldn't remember how I had gotten where I was. I have a perfect memory of the night before and all I had drunk leading up to that was a glass of wine and a few sips of scotch. Don't tell me that's not warrant to see a doctor!"

The nurse paused, flipping through his chart. "You have memory loss?" He nodded feverishly.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" He said completely exasperated. It was almost 2:00pm and he was tired, hungry, and sore from sitting in the waiting room chairs. The complete panic that had overwhelmed him that morning was replaced with frustration and anger.

The nurse made a mark on his form, "I've moved you up in priority, you should be able to see a doctor in the next half hour."

It took forty-five minutes but whatever. He sat on the examination table, the paper crinkly as he shifted in his seat. He wasn't looking up when the doctor walked in but heard her, there was a clinking sound that was familiar and he looked up.

"You!" He breathed jumping up from the table.

She looked up at him, stupid lavender eyeshadow still smeared across her lids, matching her scrubs. She sighed, like he was being ridiculous. "Charlie you have to stay calm."

"I do not have to stay calm! Don't tell me to stay calm! You drugged me. And now I'm here and I can't remember how I got here and things are happening and I can't explain them and-"

"I didn't drug you." She tossed her hair over her shoulder, "Listen, it's like I told you, you were living in a fractured reality. The worst possible scenario-"

"Oh my god, oh my fucking god. Stop talking like this is The Matrix or something. Tell me what you did to me now!" He shouted at her but she didn't flinch.

Her eyes tightened, "Have you ever heard of the theory of parallel universes?"

"Yes." Charlie gritted out, not seeing at all what this had to do with anything.

"You're in a parallel reality." She said simply, like this meant anything, because it really, really didn't.

"I don't need this," He snapped, "I just want to know what you did to me, and why I can't remember why I got here."

"I'm trying to help you! The reality you live in, you've done something wrong, you've knocked things out of harmony. You've made a decision somewhere along the line. This reality is, relatively speaking, your best one. One where you made all the right choices." It should have sounded crazy, well no, it did sound crazy. But the look in her eyes, the complete earnestness of her statement. It scared him.

"Let's say I believe you and this multiple realities crap, I don't but let's say. Why? Why me? Why does it even matter? So I made a choice and it changed my life, why the fuck does this happen to me."

"Because you're sad. You can't see it because you're used to it but you are so horribly sad. You're a good person Charlie Dalton, you don't deserve that life. You're here to figure out what you did. Relatively speaking this is your best reality. You at your best and happiest. There was another one I debated about, almost identical, only you lived in Brooklyn. But this life, you brought together more people."

Charlie honestly wanted to cry, because this was fucking insane and he knew it but it sort of felt like the truth. "I still don't understand. How does that even work, and you brought me here? How does that work? And what happened to the me that was in this reality before? Where the hell is he?"

"If I explained it anymore clearly the sheer knowledge would cause you to die." She raised her eyebrows, "Oh yeah, this shit's a big deal."

Charlie rubbed his eyes. He believed her. He believed her. How could he believe her? But he did. Because the only explanation that made any sense was one that didn't make any sense at all. She patted his arm sympathetically.

"It gets better, I promise. Just stay calm and remember, this is still your life. Just different." That sounded fake, well not fake exactly, just well rehearsed. "Now let's get you home."

She picked up the receiver "Paging Dr. Perry to examination room 1, Dr. Perry to examination room 1." She hung it up and winked at him.

Then she disappeared.

A split second later the door to the room opened and Neil stuck his head in. "Charlie!" He said, "What are you doing here?"

He paused, not sure which version of events he should give him.

"Fucked if I know." Charlie said, deciding to go for complete honesty. It's not like he had anything to lose at this point.

A.N. A note I forgot to add in the previous chapter, this fic is set present day with all the events of the film taking place in the mid-nineties. I'm using the whole 'Welton is so old school it was like it was 1959' excuse.

-C