A FEW VISITORS
CHAPTER 10
HALEY
"He-llo," Haley sang cheerily, stepping through Jess' bedroom door, carrying a tray of soup and crackers.
Jess looked up from her 'Hello' magazine and smiled at the teenager, who made her way over to the bed.
"Hi Haley..." she said.
"I brought you your soup. Becker's been instructed to go to bed, and even though he didn't want to, he's had to do as I told him. Sorry."
"Oh, it's no problem. He's exhausted, I'm sure. Poor bloke..." she laughed. Haley set the tray down on Jess' legs.
"It's carrot and coriander. Your favourite." she said, clearly pleased with the soup she'd prepared.
Jess looked up at Haley with a raised eyebrow.
"How do you know it's my favourite?" Jess asked.
Haley's face dropped. She began to stammer.
"Well—I... I think... You... That... You—"
"Becker told us you'd like it, so she assumed it was one of your favourites, Miss Parker." Derek said, appearing in the doorway.
"Right. Of course." Jess laughed, nervously. Inside she was giggling.
"So..." Haley said, plopping herself down on the bed next to Jess' feet. "Since Sleeping Beauty is catching up on the hours of sleep he missed... I'm going to be keeping you company."
Haley smiled brightly at Jess, who smiled back in turn.
"Well that sounds like fun." Jess said. She looked over at Derek. "Will you be joining us, Derek?"
"No, ladies, I've got a circa-2012 Liverpool-Chelsea match that I'd like to watch. If Jake's 'Keeping up with the Karsashians" marathon ever finishes..." he said, turning his attention to the living room.
The faint sound of bickering between the boys could be heard, and Haley shook her head.
"How are you feeling?" she asked Jess.
"Good, good. I've had some painkillers, so the throbbing has died down." she mumbled.
Haley sighed and got off the bed, moving over to the window and peering into the dark, rainy world outside.
"What date is it?" she asked, absent-mindedly.
Jess swallowed a spoonful of soup, and then realised that the girl was in a completely different era than she was used to. Of course she had no idea what the date was.
"Err... January 22nd. Thursday." she said, popping a cracker into her mouth.
Haley snapped her head around to look at Jess.
"January 22nd?"
"Yes."
"...2012?"
"Yes."
"So, it's four days until your… 22nd birthday?"
"Oh, I'd completely forgotten, yes."
Haley frowned.
She'd known all along that something was wrong, and know she'd figured it out. Something about the dates... They didn't match up in her head.
"Are you sure?" she asked Jess, who snorted.
"Yes, I'm absolutely sure. It's the 22nd of January, 2012, four days before my 22nd birthday. Problem?"
"No, no, not at all... I'll be right back, I'm just going to talk to Jake about something."
Haley smiled at Jess, who looked very confused, and dashed out of the room, making sure to quietly shut the door behind her.
Derek was falling asleep on the sofa, and Jake's eyes were glued to the TV as his episode of "Keeping up with the Kardashians" played quietly.
"Jake!" she whispered. He looked up at her.
"What?"
"It's the 22nd of January, 2012, four days before Mum's 22nd birthday!" she whispered, looking flustered and stressed.
Jake stared at her, clearly not understanding what she was hinting at.
"So?"
"So!" Haley snapped back, inching closer to him. "Something's wrong!"
Derek opened his eyes, and frowned. What could be 'wrong'?
"Calm down, Haley, you're going to have a panic attack," he said, sitting up tiredly, cockney accent still heard strongly when he whispered.
She made hand gestures frantically, completely exasperated with their lack of knowledge.
"Mum and Dad are supposed to be dating already!" she hissed.
Derek and Jake shared a look.
"Are you sure?" Jake asked her.
"Positive! Remember, the stories! About how he threw the party for her, and there were all those complications, and then it turned out so romantic and sweet? Mum talks about it all the time! And she realised that she had more than just a crush on him that night— she realised she was in love." Haley whispered, her voice softening slightly.
Jake pulled a face in disgust, and even Derek looked incredulous.
"I think that was her 23rd." Jake muttered.
"No! No, no, no! It was this year, I'm telling you! It's the most amazing story, Mum gushes about it all the time! She used to tell me and Vicky it over and over when we were little." she whispered.
"It can't have been this year, Hale'. They're not even dating, not even close. She's all fangirly over him, and he's completely oblivious. They're stuck in the friend-slash-colleague-zone, still. It's not happening." Derek said quietly.
Haley looked worried, and disheartened.
Her big, blue eyes looked gloomily at the ground, and her eyebrows knit into a tight frown.
She wasn't liking this, not at all. She was sure of the facts, and certain that something was wrong.
Derek saw her sad expression and sighed. He stood, and took her by the shoulders.
"Haley. Don't worry, it's just the wrong year. It's not like they're not going to get together, things don't work that way. We of all people know that," he whispered. "And besides- I was at that birthday party, the one you were talking about— and I'm not even in the picture yet."
She sighed again.
"Okay. I guess your right."
"Sure, listen to him, not me..." Jake said scathingly from the couch.
Haley looked at him, her eyes now cold and filled with anger.
"Oi, fuck-face. I'm going back in there to keep Jessica Parker company. Hilary Becker is asleep in the next room. My boyfriend is going to go to sleep on the couch next to you. If you disturb a single one of us, I will light a cigarette and then put it out on your face. Got it?"
He ignored her, and she gave Derek a kiss, before heading back to Jess' room.
"Where did you go?" Jess asked her innocently.
She had finished her soup, and was now surfing through television channels.
"Oh, just to ask my darling brother a few questions. Did you enjoy your soup?" Haley asked, sweetly.
"It was lovely, thank you."
Haley cleared her tray away into the kitchen and brought her a glass of lucozade, before settling down on the bed next to Jess.
"What are you watching?" she asked.
"The Vampire Diaries." Jess sighed. "After this, Grey's Anatomy is on, and then Jersey Shore."
"Well, I can't tell you too much about the future," Haley said in a hushed voice. "...But let's just say that Ian Somerhalder only improves with age."
Jess giggled.
"You like him?"
"No, but my sister does. She's boy-crazy. She goes out on a date with a different boy at least once a week." Haley groaned.
"Really? Is she pretty?" Jess asked.
"Gorgeous. And ridiculously popular, too. She's always gossiping, she has loads of friends, she goes out shopping and wears all different makeup and jewellery, boys are always hanging all over her... Drives Dad up the wall."
Jess smiled to herself.
"Is your dad protective of you?" she asked.
"Ugh, like you wouldn't believe. It drives me insane. He gets so defensive, and opinionated... Occasionally violent. And if he sees us even kiss anyone, he doesn't look at us the same for about a month."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"That must be hard for you and Derek." Jess said.
Haley looked over at her.
"How did you know I was seeing Derek?"
"I'm not stupid." Jess laughed. "I've seen the way you look at each other, the way you act around each other. It's cute."
"Thanks, but my Dad doesn't seem to think so. Although, he likes Derek better than whatever emo or punk or jock or ASBO or hippie-environmentalist that Victoria drags in this week." Haley laughed.
Jess snorted.
"I cant imagine being one of those girls. I've only had one boyfriend before." she mumbled.
"Really?"
"Yes. It sounds silly, but i never really had the chance to be anyone's long-term girlfriend, or date a whole bunch of guys. I had school, and then college, and then I started work at the A.R.C. Most of my time was spent studying, developing the academic side of my life. Although, in college, I dated this boy from Australia for about six months. He was studying to become a software engineer. He kept having to go back to Canberra to see his family; we grew apart and it didn't last."
Haley fell silent. She didn't know this about Jess.
"Oh... Well, I've only ever dated Derek before. I'm four years younger than you, and I don't plan on breaking up with him anytime soon... So, I guess you could say we have that in common." she said, offering Jess a smile.
Jess looked at her, their matching sets of blue eyes making contact, and beamed.
"We do have that in common, don't we?"
They laughed, and then turned their separate attentions back to the TV. Then, Jess' curiosity got the better of her.
She looked at Haley out of the corner of her eye.
"Have you and Derek... You know...?"
Haley looked confused for a moment, and then realised what Jess was asking, and turned very red.
"I'm not going to tell you that!" she whispered. Jess smirked.
"Why not? Who am I going to tell?" she laughed.
Haley grimaced.
"My Mum asks me the same fucking question, all the time. But then I just remind her of that time when I was ten years old." she said, suddenly looking smug.
Jess' face dropped.
"What time?" she asked, wondering what Haley could possibly be talking about.
"Well, I was ten, Jake was eight, and we used to share a room... One night, he woke up crying because he'd had a bad dream. I was cranky, and I hit him and told him to shut up. So he got even more upset and ran into Mum and Dad's bedroom. I followed." Haley told Jess. "... And we walked in on Mum and Dad having sex."
Jess fell deathly silent, and decided not to ask Haley any more questions.
For some reason, she decided not to share that particular piece of information with Becker.
CONNOR
Connor parked in the crowded car-park outside of the Red Lion pub, and he and Sid could immediately hear the noises of people talking and getting drunk and doing other pub-things as soon as they stepped foot on the gravel floor.
"Place looks busy." Connor said.
"Yeah. Surprising, for such a shitty area." Sid mumbled in return.
They walked in through the front doors, and Connor was soon finding the place vaguely familiar.
It looked like it hadn't been redecorated since the 1970s, with tacky carpets and leather booths, an assortment of wooden tables and chairs, a dartboard and snooker table, and a heavy smell of smoke.
It was packed, and Sid was struggling to remain close to Connor as they made their way through the crowd.
A TV hung on the wall, showing tonight's football match on Sky Sports.
"Who's playing?" Sid asked Connor, gesturing to the match,
"Liverpool and Chelsea." Connor said. "Who do you support, Sid?"
"I don't know much about football, to be honest, and Derek makes fun of me for it... But I'd have to say Liverpool. Derek supports Liverpool." Sid admitted.
"Well, if you support Liverpool, I support Liverpool." Connor laughed. He didn't know anything about football, either.
It was all video games and dinosaurs for Connor Temple.
They went and stood at the bar, and Connor decided to get himself a beer.
"Sid, I know your seventeen, but do your parents let you drink?" Connor asked.
Sid blinked.
"... Yes. Yes they do."
"Okay, great." Connor smiled at him, and waited for the bartender to come over to them.
While Connor was distracted with absorbing the atmosphere of the Red Lion, Sid leaned on the edge of the bar to get a look at the bartender.
He knew the bartender. He knew exactly who this bartender was.
He knew she was going to play a vital role in their evening.
And he knew that she would be an important part of everyone's, including Connor's, life from that night on.
"Hi, what can I get you?" a woman's voice asked Connor from behind.
He turned around to see the bartender. She was certainly not the fat, sweaty, middle-aged man he'd been expecting to see working in a place like this.
She was young, and beautiful, but looked very tired, which seemed to age her.
Her dark, mahogany-coloured hair was pulled back into a messy bun, and her emerald green eyes glimmered even in the darkness of the pub.
Her porcelain skin stood out against her black bartender's clothing, and Connor saw that her name-tag read—
"Connor?" she asked him. He looked up at her. "Connor Temple, you're back!"
He glanced, puzzled, at Sid, who was grinning widely.
"Err, yeah—" Connor began to say.
"I haven't seen you since Tuesday night!" she laughed, smiling at him.
Connor quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out something that had been bugging him for the last couple of days.
It was half a beer mat, with the phone number of a woman named "Natasha" scribbled onto the front.
That was the name on her name tag. Natasha.
"Natasha!" he yelped, a little too loudly. She smiled.
"Yes, that's me!" she giggled. "How is everyone?"
Connor sighed. Where to begin?
"Err, Natasha, here's the thing... I don't remember anything from Tuesday night, I was so pissed!" he explained over the noise of the crowd.
She rolled her eyes.
"I know, that's why I gave you my number on a beer mat and prayed you wouldn't lose it." she called back to him.
Everyone around them suddenly roared, as a goal was scored on the telly.
"Can we talk outside?" he asked her.
"Yeah, hold on." she said, and disappeared from view.
She found Connor and Sid and lead them out of the pub's back door, where they stood in the shelter of the pub's roof to avoid getting soaked by January rain.
Once they were out there, she hugged Connor and shook Sid's hand.
"How's Abby?" she asked them.
"Err, good, good. Listen, I was hoping you'd help me figure out what happened the other night. I'm in a spot of trouble, see..." Connor told her.
She nodded.
"Right. You leant the Anomaly Locking Mechanism to Jack's mate, Dave."
Connor froze.
"...You know about the Anomaly Locking Mechanism?" he asked her quietly.
She frowned.
"You really can't remember me, can you?"
JESS
Jess was having most fun she'd had in a while.
After getting over the trauma of finding out that Haley and Jake had walked in on their parents during a very private, very naked moment, things started to pick up a bit.
Haley and she had been giggling like schoolgirls, and then Derek woke up and decided to join them. Needless to say, he didn't giggle, but he did provide them with a source of entertainment.
"I know some secrets about your teammates." he'd told Jess.
She was immediately interested.
"Tell me them, please!" she whispered.
"Well... I know that when Becker was little, his sisters used to dress him up like a girl." he told her.
Jess grinned.
"Really?"
"Yes. I've seen the photographs. Makeup, jewellery, dresses... Apparently, they'd parade him around town like that up until he was about four, and had to start school." Derek said. "The odd thing is, they still called him Hilary."
Haley nodded, and snorted in amusement.
Jess giggled, but then covered up her laughter, feeling slightly guilty. Becker had been looking after her— she didn't want to be laughing about him behind his back when he was asleep.
Still, it was funny as hell.
"What about... Connor?" she asked.
"Connor slept with a baby blanket over his eyes until he was nineteen."
Jess guffawed. Haley chortled, and nodded sadly.
"Abby?" Jess asked.
"Hmmm..." Derek thought. Then he snapped his fingers. "Ah, this one is good. It's not happened yet for you, but one Christmas, Abby got really drunk and snogged Lester under the mistletoe. But then she decided she liked the kiss, and followed him round all night glomping him at random moments."
Jess' jaw dropped.
"Oh. My. God!" she burst out laughing.
"I know." Haley said. "He was disturbed. Never really looked at her the same after that."
Jess finished laughing, and then asked one more question.
"Derek... Do you know any secrets about Lester?"
Derek grinned evilly.
"Oh, Jess... I know most secrets about Lester. I know more about James Lester than anyone else on the team." he whispered.
Jess was hooked.
"Go on."
Derek gave Haley a glance, before starting to reveal the secrets of one James Lester, angry boss and headstrong businessman extraordinaire.
"He talks to himself all the time. He has arguments in the mirror with his reflection. Sometimes he pretends he's on a talk show being interviewed, discussing a movie he just saw, or a meeting he just had with someone famous. He practices conversations and voicemails he will leave later. And he sings Adele. All. The. Time."
Jess split her sides laughing. She gasped for breath, and the hilarity of what she'd just heard hurt her head and made her temple throb painfully.
But she didn't care, because Lester was an Adele fan.
"There's more." Derek said. "He listens to the themes from 'Harry Potter' and 'Mission Impossible' on his drive to work in the morning. Probably to make his life seem more interesting, like a movie."
Jess was crying.
"When your fluffy pink socks went missing, Jess? He took them. He's kept them for years, because he's too embarrassed to buy a pair for himself at the shops. He poses in front of the mirror with them."
Jess would have been satisfied with those secrets, but Derek went on.
"He's afraid of moths— he flaps and panics like a little girl when one comes near him." Derek continued. "And he writes really awful love poems. Has done since he was about ten. Oh— when he was a teenager, he noticed that his crap was green. He had to go for a really invasive examination, and it turned out it was just because he drank too much lime pop. He thought he was an alien, or something."
Jess clutched her head in agony, but couldn't stop laughing. She could hardly breath.
"And his second relationship was with a boy. Just saying." Derek added.
Jess wiped the tears away from her face.
"Oh my god!" she gasped between giggles.
"I know. But you can never tell anyone these things. I'm only telling you because you're unwell, and because I happen to know that in the future, everyone else on the team reads your diary and makes fun of you." Derek said.
Jess stopped laughing.
Bastards.
"How do you know all those things about Lester, anyway?" she asked.
"He's my uncle." Derek said.
Jess frowned.
"What?" she snapped in confusion.
"He's my uncle. Old Uncle James." Derek laughed.
Jess thought he was joking, but he said it genuinely, and Haley looked serious.
"But I thought... I thought you were Dan—"
She was cut off mid sentence when the phone rang. Derek got up and left the room, leaving Haley to sit awkwardly in silence with Jess.
He reappeared in the doorway a second later, holding the phone out to Haley.
"It's Nancy," he said.
Haley took the phone off him.
"Hello? Hi, Nancy... No, he's not here... He isn't either... Why? ...I know! And I told them, but they didn't believe me! I was right? Oh my god, do you know what that means? ...I know!"
Jess stared confusedly at the teenager on the phone, who had stood up and was almost jumping up and down in excitement.
Derek looked unwary about something.
"Right, I'll be right over." Haley finished.
She hung up the phone, and looked at Jess.
"Jess, I have to take Derek to your flat." she said.
"What? Why?" she asked.
"I can't tell you, but it's really important. We need to see Nancy right away. I'll take Becker's car, I'm sure he won't mind..." Haley said, pacing up and down frantically as she spoke.
"Jake will keep you company, and just call us if you need anything." she said quickly, before hugging Jess and pulling Derek out of the room.
"I'll explain on the way!" she whispered when Derek began to protest, and soon they had vanished from sight, having left the flat and Jess and Jake alone.
Jake wondered into Jess' bedroom.
"What the fuck was that all about?" Jess asked, almost angrily.
Jake shrugged, and grinned at her use of swear words. He decided to join in.
"I have no fucking idea."