"I'll have to think about it, you know?" her eyes were as big as alien spacecrafts, but her shock didn't show through in her voice.
"Oh!" I gasped, realizing that it might have been a possible yes, "Take all the time you need!"
Aura snickered.
"Aura…" Tatiana said, annoyed by her friend.
"No, it's just that he's so thrilled that you said you'd think about it!" she was starting to annoy me too, "That has got to be the most desperate thing I have ever seen!"
That made me more than pissed, but didn't really feel like a fight.
"He's not joking," Tatiana eyed her.
"I know, but still."
My cheeks were getting hot; that was embarrassing.
"I think you should leave," I said suddenly, not sure how she would react to that.
"Really?" she stopped laughing but still smiled.
"Really," I said, and I was surprised when my voice came out strong and firm. She looked at me, and I was more than satisfied when her smirk disappeared. She stood up and left the room.
A week passed after my victory over Aura. I began to accompany Tatiana regularly to her doctor's visits, and it turned out that what she had said was true. She didn't show, although according to her, she was already a third of the way through her pregnancy.
It was a normal day, as it started out. Tatiana and I walked into the doctor's office, and I smiled at the doctors, although they couldn't see it. I had grown to be grateful to them for what they did for her. They were friends of mine, even if I wasn't one of theirs. She did her regular exercises, and seemed fine. Then, it happened.
She moved on to her balance exercises, and started those off like usual. She did what she usually did, and the exercises included a balance board, an energy ball, and a stepping stool. The balance board went without event, and the stool served its purpose well. As far as I could tell, the energy ball would pass uneventfully as well. I was not as smart as I thought I was.
The exercise done on the energy ball consisted of her standing on top of it, and trying not to loose her balance. She had always been good at that, so I had no reason to worry.
The doctor helped her onto the ball, and she started off balancing just fine. She even made a comment on its level of difficulty, which she implied was minor. However, she had not been on the ball for long, when she gasped quietly, clutched at her torso, and lost her balance.
The ball slid out from under her as she fell backwards, not making any noise until she hit the ground, and even then, the noise did not come from her mouth. Despite the fact that it came from deep within her body, I heard the crack clearly. A tear slid down her cheek, but she didn't cry out or scream. She didn't even move. She just lay there, sickeningly still. She spoke then, so quietly I could barely hear the one word she squeezed out of her mouth.
"Sloth," she breathed. That was unexpected. I hadn't seen Sloth since she had thrown me at Tatiana's second house. I had nearly forgotten that she still lived inside Tatiana. I realized what was going on seconds later, when Tatiana's body surrounded itself with red sparks. She had asked Sloth to heal her.
It had taken my body a few seconds to respond, but I was soon kneeling next to her. The red sparks slowly ceased, and she began to breathe heavily. I sighed in relief, but I was still worried about her.
"She'll be okay," I jerked my head up, and saw Sloth kneeling on Tatiana's other side. She was in her original form, the female one.
"Sloth?" I asked, but turned my attention back to Tatiana, "How did that happen?"
"She thought this might happen, so she planned ahead," she said, looking intently at Tatiana.
"Tell me," I said, not looking up at her, "What did happen?"
"Who are you?!" a doctor from behind us screamed, and I turned around. I stared at him for a while, before I realized he was staring back.
"Wait," I said slowly, "Can you see me?"
"Yes!" he burst, "Now how did you do that? You just… appeared out of thin air!"
"Sloth," I said, "What happened?"
"She broke her spine," I winced at that, but she kept going, "And the only way she could fix it before it was too late, was to make me a reality in this dimension, along with everyone else."
"She did that?" I gasped.
"Yes, but she had to give up any hope of sending us back to our own dimension."
"Yeah, she told me," I said, "So everyone in this dimension can see everyone from ours, am I right?"
"Yes," she told me, "And don't look so worried. She's just exhausted from the Philosopher's Stone. Humans don't usually have to go through that. She's probably better off now than she ever has been before, anyway."
"Why's that?" I asked her.
"I healed her spine, and her leg."
"Thank you," I said, not really feeling very grateful to her, but I still owed her that much. Tatiana was fully recovered, and more than that, within a few minutes. Sloth ran off, leaving me and Tatiana to explain to the doctors how I had come to be in that world. I was amazed when they believed our story, without question. One of the doctors noticed her bloated stomach before I did, but when my attention was brought to it, she looked about three months into a pregnancy.
Let me tell you, it was a chore explaining it all to her parents. When two people got into the car, rather than one, one of them having a rather odd appearance and the other one pregnant, Susie almost passed out. After we explained it to her, though, she seemed to think that it made sense. When we got home, Susie explained it to her dad, which was probably the best way to do it, and he said that he needed to be excused.
We went into Tatiana's room, then, and I kicked up my feet to think about the whole thing. People could see me. I was in as much shock as her parents, although probably not in the same fashion. Tatiana started going through the drawers of her desk. After a while, I looked over at her, and saw that she was looking through her yearbook. She flipped through the pages, and then stopped, and stared at one of them.
"What is it?" I asked her.
"Keygan," she said, "My er… best friend's boyfriend?"
I knew who she meant. I got up and sat on the floor next to her, and looked at the picture. He had icy blue eyes, and his smile looked fake, if not a bit evil.
"Keygan, huh?" I asked at last, "I, um, I don't like him."
She laughed, "I was pretty sure you wouldn't."
She slammed the book closed. She dropped it back in her drawer, and looked at me intently.
"What would heaven be like for you?" she asked randomly.
"Uh…" it was actually a good question, "I don't know. What would it be like for you?"
"Hmm…" she said, making a thoughtful face, "I'd want to go somewhere where there was lots of soft grass, and rivers, and a beach."
"That sounds nice," I thought about it. I would like to live there with her.
"And, there would be a tree house that I could live in," she added, "And you'd live there, too."
"I was just thinking that," I admitted.
I told her to go off and help the others, what with their new visibility and all, and I went off on my own. I thought about what I should do, and then it dawned on me. I didn't have a penny to my name. I tried to think of a job that I could do, but I was drawing a blank. I had no certification, no college experience, and come to think of it, I didn't even have a birth certificate. I walked outside, not even knowing where to start.
"Envy!" I heard someone call from behind me. I turned and saw Susie running down the drive after me.
"Yeah?" I wondered what she wanted.
"Do you need anything?" she asked me.
"What do you mean?" I looked at her curiously.
"Like, do you need a ride, or something?" she asked me.
"I can drive…" I told her.
"Legally?" she asked me, raising an eyebrow.
"Well…" I thought about it. A license under an alias from another world probably wouldn't cut it here.
"Just let me know if there's anything I can do for you," she added.
"Okay," I said, stunned by her kindness, "I will."
She turned around and walked back into the house, and closed the front door behind her. I thought about it. There was a store with a help wanted sign just a few blocks down, but I didn't know what the requirements were. I figured it was worth a shot.
When I got there, they asked me if a had any past job experience, and all of that stuff. I gave them honest answers, and they said they'd get back to me. Well, at least the job didn't require college experience. I might have been able to swing it. I walked back to the house, and when I got there, I saw Susie pulling out of the driveway.
She stopped the car when she saw me, and actually got out.
"Envy?" I looked at her.
I faced her, curious as to what she wanted, "Yeah?"
"I knew something had changed, as soon as you came, even if I couldn't see you."
I didn't know how to respond to that, so she kept going.
"Tatiana hadn't been that happy for years, and I couldn't imagine what the reason was. When it turned out that she'd been in love the whole time, I was happy too. Happy for her, and for you. I know you don't have any money…"
"What, are you going to give me a loan to take her on a date?" I laughed.
"No, not exactly," she answered my joke with a serious response.
"What then?" I wondered out loud.
"You two are going to get married, I've accepted that."
Had Tatiana told her?
"The fact that you don't have any money, leads me to believe that you can't exactly afford a ring."
"Well, I was trying to get a job…" I admitted.
"I thought I'd save you the trouble," she said simply, and pulled a small white box from her pocket. I took the box, and opened it. Inside there was a thin band, sticking out of the padding that surrounded the inside of the box. The band was gold, and inlaid into the gold there was a single large diamond.
"No, I can't…" I started to say.
She held up her hand, sporting her own wedding ring. If the ring wasn't her own, then who's was it?
"That ring was the one my first husband gave me," she told me. I hadn't known she had had another husband.
"He was wonderful, but he died when he was very young," she explained to me.
I felt a sudden sympathy towards Susie, after all, hadn't I had to witness someone I loved dying and outliving them?
"I'm sorry," I told her.
"Don't be," she said, "It all led to where I am now, and I don't regret my past. You keep that."
I looked down at the ring. I really would have loved to give something like that to Tatiana.
"Give it to her the traditional way," she added, "She loves that sort of stuff."
I stood there for a while, and then nodded. I pocketed the box.
"Thank you," I had never meant something more. She smiled and nodded to me, and climbed back into the car and drove off.
I opened the door like owned the place, and called out into the house. No one answered at first, so I tried again, louder this time.
"Hello?" I yelled, "Tatiana?"
"Help!" her voice cried out. She was in the back room, and I sprinted. Was she joking, or was she really in trouble?
When I got back there, I nearly screamed as well. Rather than one, there were two people. One of them was Tatiana, and the other I had only seen in a picture. I knew him at once. I had etched his face into my brain. Keygan.
Even more disturbing, was what he was doing. She was being pushed up against the pool table, and he was in the process of undressing her, threatening her with a knife to make her cooperate.
I took all this is within a second, and in the next second, he was on the floor. I used every ounce of superhuman strength that had been given to me, plus the power of my adrenaline rush.
First blow, he spit out several teeth. Second blow, his leg was crushed. Third blow, his rib cage caved. Fourth blow, permanent paralysis. Fifth blow, out the window he had come in through.
Author's Note: Yep, he's pissed. Keygan gonna get it, man! Well, he kind of already did...
