Catherine's Adventures in the Parallel World
4. Catherine Learns About Strategy

"I can't believe the two of you," Jamie said. "We're in New York, and all you want to do is sit on the bed and watch Torchwood."

This did seem to be all Catherine and Izzie wanted to do. They had been up late the night before watching episodes on Jamie's laptop, and now in the morning they were at it again. As soon as one episode was over, Izzie just wanted to start the next.

"You love Torchwood," Catherine said to Jamie.

Izzie, arms wrapped around her knees and chin resting on top of them, was staring at the computer screen with wrapped attention. "Who wouldn't love it?" she asked. "It's delicious."

It had been a rhetorical question, but Catherine answered. "Your brother. John thought it was stupid."

Izzie wrinkled her nose. "Well, he has horrible taste." Then she added quickly, nudging Catherine in the side, "I mean, not in girls, but in other things."

Catherine didn't see what John's taste in girls had to do with anything. But Izzie said things like this sometimes—complete non sequiturs—and Cath had learned to take them as given and not bother asking questions.

"Yes well, while I do love Torchwood," Jamie cut in, in an attempt to redirect the conversation back to its point of departure, "the main thing was that we're in New York. Come on, everyone's ready to go."

He wedged himself on the bed behind Izzie and casually swatted her ponytail. Izzie tossed her head back but otherwise didn't acknowledge him. Catherine knew this was partly Torchwood and partly strategy, because Izzie had explained strategy to her. Strategy was ignoring the boys you liked because it made them want you more. Catherine thought strategy was maybe a little bit mean, but she couldn't argue with results. Jamie was completely had.

"Alright," Catherine said, who was really satisfied either way. She was happy to go, and she was happy to sit on the bed watching Torchwood with Izzie. She was always thrilled by winning someone over to science fiction. The trick was matching the right sci-fi program to the right person. Izzie, admittedly, had been easy. Torchwood had Izzie written all over it.

Izzie, however, was less thrilled at the prospect of leaving. "I don't want to go look at stupid art," she pouted. "I'd rather look at five hot people having sex with each other and fighting aliens. Or having sex with aliens and fighting each other. Seriously, these people have the best job in the world. All they do is make out. Who's idea was it to go look at stupid art?"

The Metropolitan Museum of Art had been the adults' idea, and everyone was going. Izzie was not overwhelmed with excitement. Being cultured, she had told Catherine, was overrated.

But Jamie reached around Izzie and hit the pause button on the computer. With a loud sigh, Izzie slid off the bed. In retaliation she said, "Oh well. I bet all the cute, sensitive, artsy boys go to look at paintings. So at least there'll be something for me to look at. Come on, Cath." And she flounced out of the room.

But Catherine hung back, noticing the pained expressions on Jamie's face as he watched Izzie make her exit. "How's the weather?" she asked.

Jamie shook his head and shook the expression off of his face in the process. "She's killing me Cath," he said, as he stood up. "She's literally killing me. And she's doing it on purpose."

"It's strategy," Catherine said.

Jamie merely muttered, "Mmm-hmmm." For they had excited the bedroom, and everyone was waiting for them outside.

Though they all arrived at The Met together, once they got there the group splintered off. At first, it was just that the grownups splintered off from the kids after making a time to meet back up. But then the group splintered even more.

First Jamie and Izzie got lost themselves together (for part of strategy, Izzie had explained, was that you couldn't always ignore the boys you liked or they might give up on you altogether). After that, John had hung around Catherine for a while, bombarding her with boring facts about the artists of the art they were looking at. He liked to sound intellectual, or maybe he just liked to hear himself talk.

But when it came to modern art, Catherine was too slow for him. He became impatient. And so, with encouragement from Cath herself, he moved on without her.

Catherine was happier on her own. She hadn't liked being rushed and she hadn't like being bombarded with facts. She liked to look at the paintings, but they confounded her, and it took her a long time to make sense of one before she was ready to move on to the next. It was a slightly exhausting, but she took it as a challenge and ever so slowly moved from one puzzlement to the next.

It was in this state that Rhys Tilney came upon her. However impossible it was that they should chance a meeting again, it did happen. (And when Catherine thought about—and she did think about it—she thought it was so impossible that it had to boil down to destiny. The Lost kind of destiny. New York City was like the island, and it was bringing them together.)

She was standing in front of a particularly mind-boggling Jackson Pollock when he popped up beside her and said, "Alright. Now this really is getting frightening. You have my full permission to be frightened. Actually, I'm a little frightened myself. I think you might be stalking me."

Catherine (who was overjoyed rather than alarmed to have him so unexpectedly beside her) replied, "I think I'm frightened of this painting."

Rhys looked. "I think you're supposed to be," he suggested. "It's called 'War.'"

This was true. Catherine thought he was probably right. For a minute, she was afraid he would start rattling off facts like John Thorpe did. But he didn't. He was still looking at the painting, and he was silent.

He rejoined, after a moment, "You're right. It is kind of startling."

"I don't think I'm very good at this," Catherine confessed.

He turned from the painting to her. "At what?"

"Looking at paintings."

He smiled, but it wasn't as if he was laughing at her. "I don't think you can be bad at looking at paintings," he said. "But I know what you mean. Honestly, this stuff is all way over my head. It's more my sister's thing. She's back there somewhere," he said, waving vaguely in the direction behind them.

"I think it's all starting to make my brain a little crazy," Catherine said.

"You need a break," Rhys matter-of-factly informed her. "If we sit down, Elle will catch up with us. You should meet her."

Catherine was more than open to the suggestion, and so they sat. She thought that this probably wasn't what Izzie would have done. For one thing, it went completely against strategy. But strategy was just too hard. Rhys wanted to sit down and talk to her, and he wanted her to meet his sister, and how could Catherine resist?

Rhys stretched his legs out in front of him. "And now that I've captured you, I can proceed to bore you to death with mind-numbing small talk," he said. He continued with in a mock-serious tone of voice, "So Catherine Morland, how do you like New York?"

"It's brilliant," Cath said.

"And is it your first time here?"

"It's my first time anywhere."

"You know what they say, first time for everything," Rhys said, and then made a face. "Come to think of it, why do they say that? That's not even remotely true. There are definitely some things that neither of us will ever have a first time for."

"Time travel, for instance," Catherine said.

"Exactly. However, I do have other superpowers."

Catherine, amused, crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows. "Do you?" she asked.

"I can see the future," Rhys asserted. "I know exactly what you're going to write in your diary tonight." He cleared his throat. "'Dear Diary: today I went to The Met and looked very pretty, but unfortunately was once again attacked by the strange guy who pretends to know my aunt and forced to endure his mindless prattle."

Catherine shook her head. "I would never write that."

"You doubt my superpowers. It hurts."

"Maybe I don't keep a diary," Cath said.

"You'll post it as your facebook status, then. And don't tell me you don't facebook, Morland, or I'll know you're lying to me. We can't base our friendship on lies."

The more Catherine talked to Rhys the more she liked him. She tried to keep in mind what Jamie had told her—about all boys seeming nice—along with the fact that she didn't really know Rhys at all. She tried to keep in mind that this was the parallel world, and that parallel worlds were trouble, and she tried to keep in mind the story of her mother whom she had never met once. But the truth was, it was already too late. Catherine had a major crush.

That crush was pointing to tall, willowy, dark-haired girl and saying it was his sister Elle. "Look how hard she's concentrating. She won't even notice us," he said.

He was half right. Elle was concentrating hard, but after a moment she did notice them and walked in their direction. "Gave up already?" she asked her brother.

Rhys leaned back and crossed his arms. "I'm taking a break. And this is Catherine."

"Hello, Catherine," Elle said brightly. She sat down on the other side of Rhys, as Rhys continued to her by saying, "I've been stalking her."

"You said you weren't stalking me!" Cath said.

"The truth always comes out," Elle laughed. "But he did mention you. He said we used to know your aunt, but I have to be honest, I don't remember at all. I must have been about four years old."

But Catherine did not hear the last portion of this statement. Her brain had stopped somewhere around he mentioned you. Surely, this had to mean something. You didn't mention people unless they registered as significant.

"You're here by yourself?" Rhys asked, as if he'd just realized Cath was alone. He looked about like he expected Jamie or Aunt Gail or someone to materialize.

"I was with a whole group of people, but…" she trailed off and shrugged.

"They abandoned you. How tragic," Rhys said. Elle swatted him and told him to stop it.

Cath said, "The abandonment was mutual." And Rhys laughed. He thought she was funny. Catherine was thrilled that he thought she was funny.

But then her phone started buzzing. Catherine pulled it out of her purse. The alarm was going off. She turned it off, and Rhys asked her, "What does that mean? Is the world ending?"

"It means I have to go find my people," Cath said, knowing that he could probably hear the reluctance in her voice, and knowing that this was also not a part of strategy.

"That's too bad," Elle said genuinely. "I've just met you."

"I know," Catherine said, and she began to stand up. The others stood up with her.

"Well, you'd better give me your number," Rhys said, and Catherine could feel the electricity starting in her toes and shooting all the way up her body into her brain. "Because as delightful and serendipitous as it's been running into you like this," he continued, "I wouldn't want to tempt fate."

Cath was more than happy to oblige.

She found John first. Together the two of them rejoined the rest of the group. Izzie and Jamie were a few minutes late, and when they arrived they both seemed giggly and wound up. Izzie was hanging on to Jamie's arm. And yet, Jamie took one look at Catherine and said, "Cath, you've got this moony look on your face like you've spent the last five hours staring at Lee Adama."

Izzie looked from John to Catherine, and then she looked smug, for no reason whatsoever as far as Cath could tell. Then Izzie traded Jamie's arm for her brothers and walked John ahead, leaving Cath back with Jamie.

"Is she still killing you?" Cath asked, nodding to Izzie.

"No, but I like you said, I think it's all part of the strategy. Quite honestly, it makes it hard to tell if she really likes me or it's all just fun and games. But then I think, who wouldn't like me?"

"Haha," Cath said. Her phone buzzed again. She took it out and looked at it.

"What's that?" Jamie asked.

It was a text. It read: Hasn't anyone ever told you not to give your phone number out to strangers?

It was from Rhys. And Catherine was in love.

A/N: So I haven't given up on this story by any means, but chapters might be a little delayed like this for the foreseeable future. Grad school has swallowed my life. Thanks as always for the kind review and please keep reviewing.

(Also: woa! When did Jane Austen get split up into categories by book?)