Micky lay awake in his twin bed for a long time listening to the steady, quiet breathing of his sleeping bandmates whom he shared the room with. So far he had been unable to sleep, thinking only of what the next day held for the four of them.

Micky had run away from home at a very young age, and by some trick of fate, he had bumped into Mike who had been playing solo at a local club in California. After he had finished for the night, Micky had been eager to speak to the tall, talented guy, with hopes that he could try out starting a band with him.

Upon reassuring him that he could play guitar as well, Mike had been lenient to try him out on their next little gig. Two guys playing guitars together on the stage didn't seem to be enough to the both of them so they decided to look around and see if they could find a few other voices to join them. When Peter had shown up, also only being skilled on guitar, Micky had decided to go out on a limb and try to learn to play the drums. After a while, he had a pretty good handle on them, and they played a few gigs now and then for fun trying to find their musical sound. Then Davy had come along, and their quartet had been complete.

Micky smiled sleepily at the memory and felt his eyes finally start to droop with exhaustion.

Things had been slow in the musical business for the four Monkees and they usually got grief for even being in the rock-and-roll profession. Because so many people were trying to reach that same goal of becoming famous musicians, it made it hard for the four boys to get anywhere with their own band. At one point they had even tried their hands at becoming actors but, with their luck, that dream too was foiled.

But this gig that Jeannie had put together for the boys was going to be a good one. It would either be the one they were remembered for, or the one that broke the Monkees up for good. Micky winced behind his closed eyelids as he thought of the latter possibility. Jeannie wouldn't let that happen, he somehow thought. She seemed to be a pretty driven girl, and though the strange demeanor of her presence there on the beach had been too good to be true, Micky trusted her. Her friendly nature and desire to help them had triggered a hopefulness in him that he had thought he'd thrown out long ago.

As he felt himself drifting off, he could envision himself playing the drums, with Mike in front of him to his right and Peter to his left, with Davy singing his heart out in the center of the stage. A huge crowd of people sang along with their music, shrieking excitedly the encouragements the boys needed to keep playing.

Micky glanced over to his right where the curtains concealed the edge of the stage and he could see Jeannie standing there, her hands clasped in front of her with excitement and a huge smile plastered on her sweet, round face. Micky smiled at her as he sang and then suddenly the drumsticks disappeared from his hands and his fists struck the drumhead in front of him sharply. He glanced down hurriedly at his bare palms, the beating of his drums now silenced. The sounds of both Mike's and Peter's guitars let out a shrill twinge and then their playing broke off as well. Davy whirled around in confusion as his voice cracked and Micky could see that both Peter and Mike had turned to face him too, their guitars fading from existence in their arms. Micky gasped sharply as the large drumset in front of him started to fade and he threw himself forward to hold onto the drum heads and cymbals. When his hands fell through them, he landed painfully on the wood of the stage, Mike, Peter and Davy's voices of confusion and anger falling over him. Micky covered his face fearfully as the crowd in front of them started laughing at their seemingly usual Monkees' antics. Micky glanced pleadingly up to where Jeannie still stood backstage, a look of indifference on her face. She waved sadly at him and then she too slowly faded from his sight.

"No! You can't just leave us! Jeannie, what's going on?!" Micky cried. Jeannie's silhouette vanished completely and with her, the mocking crowd. Micky looked out at the empty seats, the instant silence now overwhelming. The other three Monkees glanced up too, looks of disbelief on their faces as they all stared out at the empty room.

"What did we think would happen, that we'd become big stars?" Davy asked sourly after a few moments.

"Let's face it, we were failures from the start…" Mike said softly, taking his wool hat off of his head and fiddling with it absentmindedly. "It just took us this long to actually realize it."

"I guess this means we're done, then huh?" Peter asked, kicking at the ground and putting his hands in his pockets sadly.

"It was nice that you tried, Micky. Really." Mike said, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder from where he still crouched on the ground in a broken heap. Soon, even the feeling of Mike's hand on his shoulder caused Micky to look up through tear-filled eyes. He was alone on the stage, his bandmates having disappeared from his side as well.


"Jeannie, wake up! Are you still in there?!"

Jeannie was startled awake suddenly at her master's loud, frantic voice above her. She looked around at the interior of her bottle, where papers and photos of her party ideas were strewn among the pillows. She had fallen asleep in the middle of her planning.

She blinked quickly and, skipping her usual pink smoke entrance, she was instantly at Tony's side where he had thrown his uniform on, clearly in a hurry.

"We overslept!" He said worriedly. Jeannie was immediately in a rush as she opened the hotel room's door and began hammering on the door to Roger's room.

"Major Healey! Please wake up! Hurry!" She cried.

"It's almost eleven, Jeannie! You have to have the boys picked up for their setup and practice, don't you?!" Tony reminded her quickly.

"Yes! And I had an idea about how I was going to do it, but I…I can't remember it!" Jeannie cried, pressing her hands to her face nervously.

"Just send them a cab or something!" Roger said, emerging from his own room, in the middle of buttoning up his jacket.

"But that's not what I had planned!" She said quickly, moaning in her panic.

"Jeannie, we don't have time for your perfections, where did you decide the party was even going to be?" Tony asked her.

Jeannie's hands turned to fists and she blinked quickly to silence the numerous panicked questions that were being hurled at her. Time stopped and she was left standing in the center of Major Nelson's hotel room, both of the astronauts standing on either side of her in mid-sentence, their faces drawn with frantic worry.

"Alright…I just need to breathe…" Jeannie said softly to herself, inhaling deeply to calm her nerves. "I was almost done with my planning last night when I fell asleep…I just need to remember what how far I had gotten…"

She tapped a finger over her lips and paced a few times in front of the two frozen astronauts thoughtfully. After a moment she stopped and turned to look at her small pink bottle still sitting idly on the dresser. She blinked and transported herself back to the safety of her bottle and started sifting hurriedly through the scattered pictures and notes on her bed.

Snapshots that merchants had taken of her and her family long ago at elegant palaces and foreign parties were strewn about and she picked each one of them up gently so she wouldn't damage the delicate material the photos had been printed on thousands of years ago. In them, she could glimpse the endless banquet tables, herds of animals and bejeweled party guests. She smiled at her unaging face and expressions and touched the smooth surface of the most recent snapshot taken nearly 2,000 years ago in Tibet. That was before the Blue Djinn had found her and trapped her in her bottle, from which she had been unable to escape from until Major Nelson had released her.

"Oh yes…those certainly were the days." She murmured softly to herself, her eyes misting up emotionally as she recounted the centuries she had been trapped in the small bottle she was standing inside now. While she spent those many years in solitude she had only her memories to keep her company and from all of that time spent recounting them, she had developed a very good sense of remembering things.

Jeannie took a deep breath to calm herself once more, and blinked quickly, this time transporting herself to the spot on the beach where she had met Micky the night before. She looked around ponderingly at the very few people that had flocked to the shore that morning, seeing that they were all frozen in whatever activity they had been partaking in when Jeannie had stopped time. Some people were in beach chairs watching their children as they played in the shallow waves while a lone surfer was frozen on the peak of a wave out in the distance. Jeannie even spotted a statuesque couple walking their dog along the shoreline, where a small flock of seagulls had been disturbed by the canine's presence, frozen in their flight to get away from it. She smiled at the still, nearly empty beach and then turned to survey the area in the sand around her.

After a moment spent in thoughtful silence, Jeannie folded her arms in front of her, pursed her lips and blinked abruptly, bringing the location of the Monkees' party to existence and unfreezing time.

A fabulous tent, the size one might see in the midst of a circus filled the large empty space up near the dunes. The fabric of the tent was colored with bright yellows and greens with bright red flags that trailed in the light ocean breeze. A petting zoo of sorts took up a small space outside the tent with animal handlers offering the donkeys, camels and horses their food and water. Jeannie bit her lip as she examined the exterior of the place and then she blinked herself inside to begin the preparations for the interior.