AN: Just ignore everything that is mentioned in this chapter in regards to the future, because it is not the set future. It is only a 'what if' scenario. The next chap is the last chap of this part, and it's already finished, so let me know if you want me to put it up. Thanks to InStrFan for the constant reviews!!!
CHAPTER NINE
"Carey, wait up!" Clu called, rushing to his brother's side. The older man gave him a dirty look before gazing straight ahead.
"Get out of here, Clu. Go back in the house."
"Come on, man," Clu said; trying t put a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder. Carey shrugged it off, narrowing his eyes. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad."
"Can't be that bad?" Carey demanded. "She had no right to bring that up in there! You don't know what it's like to lose someone important to you."
"No, I don't," Clu admitted. "But I can't let you go through whatever mourning that you're going through alone - especially not when you and the others need to stick together."
Carey didn't say anything for several moments, before finally shaking his head. "I know," He said quietly. He slumped against Fi's car and tried to breathe. Then he looked up and met Clu's eyes.
"What happened?" Clu asked with patience.
Carey peered up at the darkening sky. "My wife," He said quietly. "Or, she would have been my wife, I guess. We were engaged." He swallowed hard. "She was in an accident and there wasn't anything anybody could do to help her. She died on impact."
Clu didn't say anything for several moments. "I'm sorry," He murmured. The two may have been brothers, but suddenly Clu felt as if the two were a hundred miles apart. Time worked in odd ways like that. It separated people when they needed to stick together. It made weaknesses. There wasn't anyway Clu could help his brother, no matter how much he wanted to. It was a sickening realization, but something he was quickly dealing with. It wasn't his job to pull Carey together. At least, not this Clu. The one from this time period should have pulled through in his duties a long time ago. Why wasn't he here now?
"How … did it happen?" Clu hesitantly asked.
"It was a car accident," Carey finally replied, his eyes not leaving the sky. "We'd gotten into this stupid fight that had started off with whose turn it was to do the dishes and ended with her storming out of the apartment to go for a drive. She was on her way to Annie and Jack's, I think, when her car hydroplaned and she swerved off the road crashing into some tree." He hesitated, turning and looking at Clu. "Something about the angle that she hit the steering wheel at."
"Look -."
"I don't want Annie and Jack's sympathy," Carey said, his voice suddenly hardening. "And I'm sick of Fi being concerned. I can handle all of this on my own."
"No you can't," Clu argued. "They need you just as much as you need them. I always looked up to you, Carey – we all did. Whatever is going to happen, they can't do it without you."
"I never left," Carey said, giving Clu a dirty look. "Not like you and Fi." There was something resenting in the tone that Clu hastily picked up on. It was something he'd never heard from his brother before – not even when he was furious. It was one of those tones you take when you're just about to give up on everything despite yourself - when you're just too tired to go on.
As Clu thought back on it, he began to realize that Fi had that same attitude. A strange reluctance to everything around her. Clu couldn't tell if it was just being in Hope Springs that brought it about, or if it was his presence. Either way, Clu didn't like seeing it on his brother or his friend's faces.
"Carey -," He started, and then he shook his head. "Please don't do this to yourself, man. Don't you remember at all what things used to be like? We were all friends -."
"Yeah, we were," Carey replied. "But a lot of things have changed. Don't you get that?"
"I do," Clu said immediately. "Believe me, I do. But I just don't see why. Why are things so different?"
"Because everyone has gone through things. Like you and Fi. You couldn't stand being around each other – She always thought you were secretly in love with Annie and you always thought she didn't want to be here. You both pushed each other away that now none of us see you. And Annie … she's so afraid she's going to hurt the people around her that she hardly lives her life! She might as well raise her daughter in a plastic bubble! And Jack … Jack's obsessed with trying to make everything right, but it's not going to be right. Nothing is going to be alright. There is nothing you, or I, or anyone else can do to fix it."
Clu swallowed hard, letting those words sink in. "What about you?"
Carey suddenly lost steam, and slumped against a tree. "I just do things day to day. It's the only thing I can do."
"… You need a shrink," Clu finally said, cracking a smile from his brother's lips.
"Don't we all?" He asked sardonically.
"Look, why don't we head back inside?" Clu suggested. "Maybe you, me, and Fi can come up with some way to stop this… Shadow."
The two started back up the driveway to the house. "It isn't fair to drag you into our mess," Carey said quietly, turning to his brother. "You're going to have to deal with enough as it is."
"Aw man, I really don't want to hear that," Clu groaned. Carey forced a smile and patted his brother on the back as he pulled open the door.
Fi was standing in the middle of the room with a wailing Abigail in her hands, glancing uncertainly at the ringing phone. She sent Clu a pleading look and he only grinned, walking over and reaching for the phone.
That was really when, to be quite specific, all hell broke loose in the Phillips home.
The Shadow – which Clu recognized as one of those demon/phantom things they had seen in the Dream plane – launched itself from under the table and knocked Clu onto his back, the Shadow passing through him and disappearing into the floor. He was vaguely aware of Fi and Carey's cries of concern, but at that very moment he couldn't really hear anything aside from the ringing in his ears. He blinked several times and let out a groan, trying to get up only to have pain shoot through his back.
"We having a little pow wow here?"
Clu winced, turning his head at the well-known voice to see himself walk into the room, giving each of them a dirty look.
"Clu?" Fi asked with surprise, pulling Abigail closer to her chest. "What are you -?"
"Did you have a nice flight back from Seattle?" Clu interrupted. At Fi's confused look he elaborated with, "I myself enjoyed the flight. Except for that screaming three year old running around the place."
"What are you talking about?" Fi snapped.
"Well, I'm not surprised you didn't see me on the same flight as you, me being in first class and you staying in coach, but none of that really matters, does it?"
"When were you in Seattle?" Fi asked, narrowing her eyes.
"I was actually there for a month. Or two," Clu replied, glancing at his fingers. "I thought about catching up … but then I decided I didn't want to waste the time."
Past Clu finally managed to push himself up with a grimace, and struggle to his feet. He watched the silent exchange between the two with confusion, but shook his head, starting for his brother's side.
"You want to know what I found when I was in Seattle, Fi?" Future Clu asked, raising an eyebrow.
Fi pursed her lips, although her eyes seemed to be darting from Past Clu to Carey almost pleadingly. "I don't know," She finally said.
"I found myself very confused. Why? Because I'd spent three years of my life wandering aimlessly from place to place in hopes of finding some way to -." He stopped, shaking his head. "That doesn't matter, though. What does matter is that I found something else in Seattle. Something that I'm sure you were very concerned about when it went missing."
Fi suddenly paled, as did Carey. Past Clu just tried to understand what was going on.
"You released the Shadow?" Fi breathed, staring in horror. "Why would you -."
"If I remember correctly," Future Clu started, "control over the Shadow gives you control over the entire supernatural world. It was bargaining, Fi. If I wanted to live, I had to make a deal."
"You can't seriously mean that you -."
"I agreed to release the Shadow in return for getting my life back, yes, Carey, that is exactly what happened."
"You know the consequences!" Fi exclaimed, shifting Abigail's weight.
"Would you prefer it if I were dead?" Clu argued. Then he shook his head. "Actually, you probably would."
"Do you even know who it's gone after?" Fi demanded. "All the innocent people -."
"No," Clu hissed. "That's the best part. I still have control over the Shadow, which means I decide who it goes after."
"At a price, Clu," Carey argued.
"The price doesn't matter," Clu hissed. Then he looked at Fi. "The only person the Shadow has been after is you. After all, you were the only person it could never get to before."
"You have no idea what you're doing," Fi said, shaking her head.
"I'm just doing what you never had the guts to do," Clu argued.
Past Clu stood where he was. None of this was making any sense, and perhaps that was for the best. He'd decided if he could find a way back home, he'd make sure none of this craziness ever happened.
"You're crossing way too many lines, Clu," Carey snapped.
"It's about time somebody did! Maybe if had crossed a couple of lines, you would have fixed that fiancé of yours."
Carey narrowed his eyes and burst forward, about to punch his brother in the face just as the front door opened and Jack and Annie stepped in. The Shadow lurched up behind Fi.
Everything froze. Carey's fist were inches from Future Clu's face, Fi was holding Abigail and looking ready to take off, and Annie and Jack were crying out in horror as the Shadow reached out for Fi. No one moved, except for Past Clu.
He looked around with surprise, hoping to find an answer to the strange phenomenon when something gently touched his shoulder.
He jumped, spinning around and almost bumping into Carey when he realized there was a young woman standing behind him. She looked familiar, but at the moment he couldn't quite place her.
"You can't let this happen," She warned, looking over his shoulder at the scene about to occur.
Clu glanced back with confusion. "What exactly happened?"
The woman shook her head. "There isn't much time to explain, you have to head back -."
"I can't fix anything if I don't know what went wrong," Clu snapped.
She hesitated, and then nodded, leading Clu away from the fight that was about to take place. "I've seen the future as it should be, and this isn't it," She explained as she moved. "Someone must have been successful in the past."
"Someone?" Clu asked.
"Haven't you wondered where your friends are?" The woman asked, looking at him with surprise. It was that look that triggered it. Morghan.
She was Morghan Steets, the very same girl the group had met earlier that day – although it felt as if weeks had passed since he and the girls had found Jack and Carey locked in the attic. . She'd pulled Fi and Annie out of some trouble, and Fi had suggested later that she was a psychic. He hadn't recognized her because she appeared older. Why was she here?
"I figured they had gone home," Clu admitted, choosing to answer her question rather than dwell on his own. He could only deal with one problem at a time, and fixing the future seemed to be the most important at present.
"Unfortunately No. The phantoms that took Rick's soul caused a rift in the portal sending each of you in separate directions. They then sent out agents to distract each of you so that they would gain the upper hand. They must have succeeded somewhere because obviously the future has been altered. Everyone has become distant and separated from who they once were. None of this is right. You have to go back and fix it."
"How can I fix it when I don't know what happened?" Clu demanded.
The woman peered over her shoulder as the two stepped into Fi's old room. She winced, a sharp pain rippling through her head. Time couldn't be frozen for much longer.
She tore a key from her neck and pressed it into Clu's fingers. "I don't know, but you have to find Fi and Jack and Annie. This key should open the door, as well as temporarily give your sprit a body. You just need to keep your mind on the others – the door should take over from there."
"What about you?" Clu demanded. "I can't just leave you here."
She smiled sadly. "I don't exist here," She said, gesturing around the room. Then she pressed her fingertips to Clu's forehead. "I only exist here, in your memories."
He frowned in confusion, but there wasn't enough time to think it over as she gestured behind him. Clu turned, surprised to see the magnificent door that had brought him to this dangerous future in the first place. He gave Morghan one last look before unlocking the door and hastily walking through, closing the door behind him just as Morghan's concentration broke and the future fell apart.
SO WEIRD
Clu set the glass of orange juice down in front of Fi before taking a seat across from her. He seemed to contemplate something for a moment as Fi gratefully swallowed down the juice, and then shook his head. "So why are you here?"
Fi hesitated, setting the glass down and giving Clu a cautious look. "Why don't you visit your family?" She asked quietly.
Clu shrugged. "We're just not that close," He stated. "For as long as I can remember it's been me and my Mom, don't see why it has to be any different."
Fi looked down at her fingers with thought. "I'm trying to pinpoint something, and unfortunately neither your brother nor mine will help me understand what happened. Do you remember hearing anything about my Father being in a car accident? Rick Phillips?"
Clu frowned, a dark look on his face. "Wait, Rick Phillips of PKB?"
"Yeah. Do you remember him?" Fi asked.
Clu hesitated, before shaking his head. "Mmhmm. Him and his wife fired my Mom."
A chill ran down Fi's spine. No wonder everyone was so dead-set against mentioning Clu and Irene - they were partly responsible for whatever had happened. Still, she couldn't see how her Mother would ever allow Evelyn to become her manager. No matter how many fights Molly and Irene would get in, they still remained close. Whatever happened, it must have been big. Fi had to find out what it was, because she knew it had something to do with her Father still being alive.
"I – I'm sorry?" Fi asked. She shook her head. "How … do you know why?"
Clu shook his head. "It isn't like this is something my Mom and I discuss on a daily basis," He stated.
"Right," Fi agreed, slightly dejected. "I was just really hoping that maybe you could -."
"Your Father got in an accident. My mom got in a fight with him and your mom about something and apparently my Mom pushed things too far. She was fired. Evelyn came in the next day. My parents always argued about whatever it was your Father had been chasing after that night of the accident, which I can't really say I know what it was. My parents hated each other and they got a divorce. Now you know the story."
"No, I don't," Fi said, giving him an annoyed look.
Clu rolled his eyes. "Why did you come here, Fi?" He searched her face. "We never got along when our parents hung out together."
"I thought you said you didn't remember me," Fi said.
"I guess I'm good at acting. Look, I don't want to get mad. I just think that you're wasting your time here. I'm sorry, but I can't help you."
"Apparently no one can," Fi said, shaking her head and standing up quickly. "I'm sorry to have bothered you."
"… Wait," Clu called. Fi gave him a confused look and he shook his head. Clu swallowed hard. "My brother … how is he?"
Fi smiled slightly, taking her seat again. "Look, I know what it's like to lose a family member. Don't waste all the chances you could have just because your parents can't seem to stay together."
Clu seemed to think it over for a moment, and then he bent down, kissing her softly on the lips. Then he pulled back. "Thanks for the advice."
"…This is really awkward."
Fi turned with surprise to see Clu, standing in the doorway. She looked back at the other Clu who was equally just as confused as her.
"What the -."
"Maybe I should mention I'm from an alternate reality," Fi said hastily.
"Maybe you should mention why you were kissing … me," Her Clu said, giving the other Clu a weird look.
"He kissed me!" Fi exclaimed, looking at him with surprise. And then she shook her head. "How did you even get here?"
"I got a key," Clu replied, holding the silver charm up.
"Where have you been?" Fi asked, standing now. "Are Jack and Annie with you?"
Clu shook his head. "I don't know where they are, but they definitely weren't with me. Where are we, anyways?"
Fi looked back at the other Clu and gave him a sympathetic smile. "When I said I know what it's like to lose a family member, I wasn't lying. Where I come from my Dad died when he was in that car accident. I don't know what he did that saved him that night in this world, but in mine he didn't make it through. I've had to live with not knowing him for my whole life. Don't lose your family, Clu."
"Come on," Fi's Clu said, gesturing to the elegant door in the middle of the kitchen. "We have to find Jack and Annie, and then we're going home."
Fi walked to his side. "Where have you been, anyways?"
"Future, and I really don't want to talk about it," Clu replied. Fi gave a light laugh and the hastily followed behind him.
The Door of Planes slammed shut. Fiona Phillips dropped into a chair at Clu Bell's – the very kid she hadn't seen in years – table, and suddenly began to suspect that whatever had happened to her for the past two weeks had something to do with the paranormal.
