A FEW VISITORS
CHAPTER 7
JESS
"So, Jake. I see you like chocolate almost as much as I do."
"My diet primarily consists of chocolate products... As long as it's not orange chocolate. I hate orange flavoured chocolate. It tastes funny."
Jess smiled.
She and Jake were walking out of Shakeaway, Jess with her chocolatey Ferrero Rocher milkshake, and Jake with his also chocolatey Cadbury's caramel milkshake.
They got back in Jess' car, each of them slurping their extra large drinks in silent bliss, and Jess started the engine.
"I think orange chocolate tastes funny, too. It's just... Wrong." Jess agreed after a minute.
"So wrong." Jake added.
"Well, it seems like we have a lot in common, Jake." she said happily, smiling at him.
"More than you know..." he mumbled under his breath.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing."
"So, I thought we could get to know each other a little better, see what else we have in common." she suggested. "Firstly, what's your surname?"
"You already tried this when we were looking for Molly back at the A.R.C." he said bluntly.
Fuck, Jess swore in her mind.
If he was her son, he had obviously inherited her brains.
"I'm not trying anything, I'm just... Curious." she said, as innocently as possible.
"Well, curiosity is prohibited." he said.
She rolled her eyes.
"Come on! I'm your friend, we can talk! We have lots in common. Our love of chocolate, shoes, our pickiness about clothing, our intelligence, our jobs as field coordinator..."
Jake thought about this for a moment, taking another gulp of his milkshake.
"True..." he muttered.
"Yes. So, let's hear some other stuff. Not including your surname."
He scanned his brain for something insignificant to tell her, while she waited patiently.
She was going to get some useful information out of him; the milkshake practically guaranteed that— it was basically a truth serum.
"I don't like my sisters." he said after a long time.
Jess sighed exasperatedly.
"Duh, I know that! I see the way you and Haley— hold on, did you say sisters? Plural?"
Jake stared at her blankly, drinking his milkshake and nodding ever so slightly.
"You have other siblings? Other than Haley?"
"Yep."
Jess couldn't contain her smile.
"Tell me about them!" she ordered loudly.
Jake paused.
"Well, you don't know my surname, and you don't know what year I'm from... Those are the things we're really not supposed to say. But nobody said anything about family and siblings and stuff, so... Why not?" he said, shrugging.
Jess was practically jumping up and down in her seat at this point.
"Haley's the oldest, obviously. Then there's me, the best one." his hazel eyes gleamed with self-pride.
Then he took on a darker expression.
"Then there's Victoria— she's 14. There's only a ten-and-a-half-month age gap between us, but we don't get along very well. She's too... Gossipy. Then there's Bryony- Bry, we call her- who is 11. She just started my high school. She's a total geek. Bookworm, you know?" he said, taking mother slurp of his milkshake.
Jess was smiling like the Cheshire cat.
"Are you the only boy?" she asked.
"Yeah, feel sorry for me." he snapped. "And it gets worse. We thought Bryony was the last one, but then there was an... accident, a year ago."
"What do you mean?" Jess asked him.
"Sophie." he sighed. "She's a year old. Came as a surprise to all of us. There's a sixteen year age gap between her and Haley, you know."
Jess raised her eyebrows in surprise.
Whoops.
"But we love little Sophie, even if she was an accident. I was pretty pissed off at first, I didn't want another baby in the house. But she's my basically my favourite, now. And Mum and Dad totally fell in love with her." he explained.
Jess, for some reason, felt like screaming, but the moment was ruined when Jake burped loudly.
"Sorry... Milkshake..." he mumbled apologetically, before continuing. "I was kinda hoping she was a boy, though. It would be cool to have a little brother."
"Well, who knows? You didn't expect Sophie... Maybe you'll end up with a brother one day. Accidents happen." Jess chuckled, nervously.
"Gotta love those accidents, eh?" Jake laughed. "That's how Haley came along."
Jess nearly slammed onto the brakes.
"Haley was an accident?" she asked.
"Apparently. I mean, I don't know the whole story, but Mum and Dad hadn't been dating that long before they were pregnant with her, that's for sure. In fact... I think Bryony and I were the only two that weren't accidents. Jesus, you'd think they'd have some self control..." he said, scathingly.
Jess glared at him, before reminding herself that she might not actually be his mother.
Oh, bullshit.
She was his mum, and he knew it, and was just using this situation as an excuse to wind her up.
Clever little bastard.
"And what year was Haley born?" she asked. He looked at her with raised eyebrows.
"Really? That's a poor attempt. You're going to have to put a bit more effort in than that if you want to get the 'prohibited' stuff out of me." he said, smirking.
He knew exactly what he was doing!
Jess huffed, and decided to ignore him.
If Haley and Derek had indeed told him to keep his mouth shut, the message had clearly gone in one ear and straight out the other.
MATT
"Hiya, mate." Connor had panted, totally out of breath after racing the little girl up seven flights of stairs to his flat.
Why they hadn't taken the elevator, god only knows.
"Hi..." he'd replied, looking at the pair suspiciously.
Connor Temple and the little girl named Molly were stood at his front door, Connor looking like he was about to puke from exhaustion, and Molly staring at him with a maniacal grin.
"Can I help you?" he asked them.
"Yeah, actually. I came to get Abby's popcorn machine." Connor panted.
"Alright, come in."
Connor and Molly stepped inside Matt's flat, and he closed the door behind them. Emily came out of the bedroom to greet them.
"You know, I don't know what's so great about this 'popcorn'. I found it quite bland without the salt." Emily muttered, more to herself than anybody else, as Matt got the machine down from a cupboard.
"Popcorn is awesome. How can you not like popcorn?" Molly asked her, looking almost offended. Emily blinked.
"Okay, well, thanks for this machine, mate. Sorry to disturb you." Connor said, as he handed him the popcorn maker.
"No problem. What are you lot doing?" he asked.
"We've got all of our 'guests' round at Jess' flat. So that they're more comfortable and can talk about what's going on together, you know?" Connor explained. "You're welcome to come over for a drink, if you want." he offered.
Matt looked at Emily.
"Oh! Please, please, please, PLEASE, come over!" Molly pleaded to Emily, jumping up and down giddily on the spot. Emily laughed at her.
"I guess that's a yes, then..." Emily said to Matt, who shrugged and nodded to Connor.
Matt had noticed several things about the young adults that came throughout the anomaly that morning, but had paid special attention to Molly in particular.
First of all, he'd noticed, she looked exactly like Emily. The soft facial features, the beautiful green eyes, the tousled, brown hair. Just like the woman he'd accidentally fallen in love with.
Secondly, she had that slight Irish accent. As though it was muddled with the English accents of school kids and friends and people around her that influenced her speech, but the Irish still stuck through and was the base of her voice, prominent at times and unnoticeable at others. Like she was raised with it, and learned to speak with it, but it had been... diluted.
Thirdly, he saw, that she may have looked like Emily in many obvious ways, but in a few of her features, he saw no one but himself.
Her smile. It was his.
The way she moved her eyebrows— him.
Her personality? All him. Her determination and forcefulness that she used to manipulate people was one hundred percent his own, with a tad Emily thrown in.
This girl mirrored him and Ms. Merchant, completely.
Not to make any assumptions, of course.
These were just things he'd noticed.
And noticing the things that he'd noticed only made him surer of his decision to go and get drunk with Connor.
He had just planned on staying in, anyway. Emily had been nagging him to watch "Bride Wars" with her, as she wanted to find out what the customs were with modern-day weddings, and learn about marriages that weren't, in fact, arranged. He really didn't want to watch "Bride Wars", though, and so going out with Connor seemed like a perfectly harmless way to put that event off another night.
Besides, he suspected Emily might have been trying to send him a message lately.
The films she had rented from Blockbuster also included "27 Dresses", "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Love Actually", "Bridesmaids", "Mamma Mia", "Steel Magnolias", "Father of the Bride", "The Princess Bride", "My Best Friend's Wedding", "Made of Honour" and many others.
Perhaps she was hinting at something.
And so Molly had her way again, and before long, they were all at Jess' flat.
BECKER
"Come on, Becker, have a drink! Abby pleaded with him.
He, Abby and Jess were stood around in Jess' kitchen, and the 'visitors' were sat in the lounge. Jess had drained the rest of the 'Apothic Red' bottle, Abby had had the last four cans of Budweiser from her fridge, and they were currently waiting for Connor to come back with Molly and more booze.
"No, I'm the designated driver." he said for the tenth time that evening.
"Oh, come on, you can get a taxi." Abby moaned. "Stop being such a party pooper."
"No. And it's not because I enjoy being the only sober person in the room, and it's not because I'm totally in love with my glass of Pepsi. It's because I want to drive people home safely, and there are children in my care. So go ahead and get pissed, ladies, but you're not getting me drunk." he told them, causing Abby to pull a pouty face like a petulant toddler.
"Hey, guys, we're back," Connor called from the front door as Molly skipped into the flat. Everyone turned to look at him. "And I brought Matt and Emily with me!"
Matt gave them a quick wave, and Emily smiled.
"And I brought booze!" Connor cheered, doing a little dance on his way over to the kitchen. Abby joined in with the dance, and they opened bottles of wine and cans of beer, looking quite ridiculous as they did so.
They are so meant for each other, so they can act stupid as a couple, Becker thought.
"Becker, are you not having a drink?" Matt asked him. He shook his head.
"I'm the driver." he said.
"Typical." Matt mumbled, taking a can of Warsteiner off of Connor.
"Becker, can I talk to you for a minute?" Jess asked him quietly.
"Sure."
She lead him to her bedroom while Abby and Connor were distracted with Matt and Emily, and closed the door quietly behind them.
"I found out more stuff." she said excitedly in a hushed voice.
"Great, me too." Becker replied.
"You first." she said.
"Okay, well, I know for a fact that Derek knows Danny Quinn. Very well, he said. But he didn't say how. And I also know that Haley and Derek were stuck in the Jurassic for about six months a couple of years ago."
"Ooh, that's interesting. Could he be Danny's son? Danny's son would definitely survive in the Jurassic." Jess said.
"I think so." Becker whispered.
"I found out that Jake and Haley have other siblings." she squeaked happily.
Becker remained silent. He didn't really know what to say to that.
Should he be happy, or freaked out? Or pretend he couldn't care less?
"Yep, they have a sister named Victoria, and a sister named Bryony! And then, last year- in their time, of course- their parents had another baby, by accident, called Sophie!" she finished.
"S-Sophie?" Becker choked.
"Yes. There's a sixteen year age gap between her and Haley, can you believe that?" she whispered. Becker shook his head and chewed the inside of his lip nervously.
"But I still haven't found out his surname, or what year he is from, or when he was born." Jess said. Then, she noticed that Becker had gone very pale. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm good." he said, a little too quickly for her liking.
"Okay... Let's get back to the others, then." she said, pulling him back out of the room.
Abby, Connor, Matt and Emily were laughing loudly about something Lester had said that morning by accident, and the kids in the lounge were giggling about something, too.
It looked like a happy scene, overall.
Happy, until about 1:15 am.
Up until this point in the evening, everything had been going smoothly.
Jake had set up Connor's X-Box, and he and Sid had begun playing "Halo: Reach".
Nancy was sitting on the arm of their couch, pretending to be paying attention to their game, but in fact eavesdropping on the adult's conversation. She was enjoying listening to them, obviously, and Becker noticed her smiling to herself every time Connor did something stupid.
Haley had sat talking with Derek for most of the evening, spare the moments when he had snuck outside a couple of times— which, Becker suspected, had something to do with the pack of Marlboro cigarettes he kept in his jeans pocket.
Becker watched the way Haley and Derek interacted; they were close, closer than any of their other teammates (with the exception of the twins). They were definitely the most mature of all their friends, and it was probably due to the fact that they'd been stuck in the Jurassic together.
He couldn't imagine what Abby and Connor, and Danny, had gone through (or in Danny's case, were still going through). Being stuck in a different, completely alien, time period... It seemed enough to drive one insane. Haley must have been fifteen, Derek seventeen— they were so young to be put through that.
Clearly they had been taught how to survive by the right people.
He wondered who said people might have been.
And then he wondered how, if in the future he happened to have a daughter, he might react to her seeing a boy. Or dating at all.
Or dating Danny Quinn's son.
He wasn't liking the idea of it, that was for sure.
While all of the older kids sat around, as comfortable as they could get in the hands of such strangers, young Molly was fast asleep on Sid's shoulder.
The kids were behaving well.
The adults by the 1:00 mark, however, were getting a little... Stupid.
And Becker was the only sober one.
First of all, Connor burst out laughing. Becker wasn't surprised at this— he knew that after the amount of Stella Artois he'd consumed, everything seemed hilarious.
"What are you laughing at?" Abby asked, trying not to slur her words.
Connor gasped for air, and calmed himself down.
"We d-drank all the b-beer!" he whispered hoarsely, before bursting out into another fit of laughter.
Matt and Abby erupted into a loud chorus of laughter that would surely wake the neighbours, joining Connor in the blissful drunken state.
Becker had never seen Matt drunk; it was disturbing to see the team leader, who was always so in control and sensible, acting so... Loose.
"And guess what?" Emily shouted from the counter nearby. Everyone looked at her. She giggled cheekily and waved two empty bottles of wine in the air. "Me and Jess drank all the wine, too!" she laughed.
Connor, Abby, Matt and Jess laughed loudly like a pack of cackling hyenas, causing the younger generation of the team to look over at them. Jake looked confused, and Molly was beginning to stir.
"Okay, guys, listen— Molly fell asleep over there, so maybe we should just keep it down a little bit." Becker told them, lowering his voice in an attempt to get them to copy. They all nodded very seriously.
Emily giggled.
"Do you want to know what I think?" she whispered.
"Hell. Yes." Connor whispered back.
The Lady stepped towards the group, glancing at each of them with a mischievous glint in her eye and giggling every once in a while.
"I think..." she said, her voice barely audible it was so quiet. She pointed dramatically at the kids in the lounge. "That those lot... Are our kids."
Becker looked around for any bad reactions.
But none came.
Abby and Connor began laughing like Muttley from "Wacky Races", their knees buckling from the hilarity and forcing them to cling to each other for support.
Matt closed his eyes and nodded, smiling wisely to himself.
Jess bit her lip and giggled anxiously.
It wasn't as bad as he'd expected.
But then Matt spoke up.
"I think so too, Emily." he laughed. Connor and Abby laughed even harder. "And I know which one's ours."
Uh oh.
Emily gasped, and he motioned for her to come closer to him. She stumbled towards him and cupped her hands around her ear so that he could whisper to her.
He said something, and Connor, Abby and Jess fell silent on cue.
Emily pulled away from him, and nodded. Matt nodded too.
And then they both started laughing, falling against each other like idiots as Connor and Abby had been doing just seconds before.
"He said 'Molly'!" she squeaked quietly, jumping up and down on the spot in excitement.
Jess, Abby and Connor did the same, with Connor looking incredibly feminine and silly as he did so.
"I know! I th-think so t-too!" Abby hiccupped. "Sh-she looks just l-like you."
This isn't good, Becker thought. If things kept going this way, who knew what would end up being said?
"Sh-she looks just like me? Please, have you seen Sid and Nancy?" Emily said back.
Abby gasped and looked at Connor, who had just finished yawning.
"Oh, don't— don't even get me started," he snapped, seeming suddenly pissed off. "On those two. I nearly had a fucking mental breakdown today, because they look- like- they look- like us." he slurred, pointing lazily to himself and his fiancee.
"And guess what?" Jess said loudly.
All of the kids in the lounge looked over at her.
"Becker thinks that Derek is Danny's-mph!"
Jess began to speak some words which were not up for discussion, but Becker covered her mouth to stop her, muffling her speech.
"What did she say?" Derek asked, standing up from his spot on the couch.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." Becker assured him quickly. "Right, Jess?"
He took his hand away from her mouth, and she shot him a glare that said she didn't appreciate what he just did.
"Right." she snapped back.
Becker breathed a sigh of relief.
Prematurely, it would seem.
"And I think that Jaley and Hake are mine and Becker's babies!" she shouted.
Becker's jaw dropped.
Shit.
And, simultaneously, Haley and Jake's jaws dropped.
Jess laughed hysterically to herself, with everyone stood around watching her, and then realised what she had done. She gasped and covered her mouth.
"I'm sorry!" she whispered, looking directly at Becker. "I didn't mean to—"
Then, Jessica Parker's five-inch heels betrayed her.
She tripped clumsily over her own feet and fell forward, smacking her head hard on the edge of the granite countertop.
Emily shrieked.
Molly woke up.
Connor and Abby gasped.
Derek needed a smoke.
Matt sighed.
Becker panicked.
Jess was out cold.
a/n: Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed this story! I am so grateful for all of your support.
Merci à Mijo54 !
And special thanks to Prawn Crackers for coming up with the names of Lester, Victoria, Sophie, (and many others that have not yet been revealed), and your endless inspiration!
You are all awesome guys! :D
