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Ch. 11 Last Night I lived more than 1000 Lives

(CLARE)

I wake up when I hear Owen in the washroom, it's after nine and he's in the shower so I start getting dressed. I'm getting my shoes on when Owen comes out of the washroom, drying his hair with a towel and clad in only jeans and boxers. I take my bag into the washroom to finish getting ready and when I come out Owen is dressed.

"Let's check out and grab some breakfast," Owen says and my stomach growls in agreement. We pack our bags and check out paying in cash and get in the car finding a little restaurant.

"So what are we going to do today?" I ask after we order.

"Well we have a science fiction and comic book convention to go to today, in fact after this we need to go see Josie at our favorite thrift store," Owen tells me.

"Don't you have to buy tickets to those things way in advance? Aren't they fairly expensive?" I inquire remembering Wesley saving for a year to go to a big one in Vancouver.

"I don't know probably but we won't exactly walk in through the front door," Owen shrugs and I shake my head.

As soon as we've paid the bill we drive to the thrift store and Josie smiles when she sees us. Owen tells her we're going to the sci-fi comic convention and we pick out a bright green wig for me. It's straight and cut into a 50's style bob, Owen finds a metallic looking silver dress to go with it and purple knee high boots. Owen gets a dark blue wig for himself; it has a sort of Beatle cut and makes him look like he stepped out of the 60's. He also gets a black vest and blue slacks, he pairs them with black boots and a black fez which makes him look like a genie.

"Hang on," Josie says going into the back and coming out a few minutes later, "these are leftover from Halloween."

"Awesome," Owen grins taking the plastic genie lamp and blue sash that Josie brought out.

"There's a drug store down the street you should get eye shadow, lipstick and nail polish in the same color as Clare's wig. Oh glitter, spray on glitter and Clare needs something else, there's a toy store close by see if they have a futuristic space looking pistol thing," Josie says.

"Yes those will be great, do you have like white jumpsuits or something?" Owen asks.

Josie says she'll check, we leave the stuff there and get in Owen's car we go to the toy store first and find me a space pistol. It's plastic and cheap looking but who cares we just need it for a couple of hours. We stop at the drug store on the way back to the thrift store; we buy spray on glitter and green makeup to match my wig before going back to the thrift store.

"Couldn't find any white jumpsuits but I found these, figured you wanted some kind of work uniform," Josie says when we come back in.

"Perfect, here start painting her nails it will take a while to dry right?" Owen comments handing her the nail polish from the bag, Josie takes it and we sit at the counter while she paints my nails.

A few other customers come in while she's painting my nails but she only stops to ring them up. Owen looks through the uniform shirts and coveralls before finding two he likes, actually they're paramedic uniforms and they look very authentic. I don't know if they'll really fool anyone but I do know at this point that Owen is a smooth talker and could probably talk us into just about anywhere. Since we both have boots we wear them under our paramedic uniforms, putting the wigs and everything else into a plastic bag. Josie gives us half off of everything we buy for letting her take out pic in the paramedic uniforms and promising to come back so she can take our pictures in the other costumes. Owen makes one last stop at a medical supply place where we find a little duffel that looks like a paramedic bag. He drives us to the convention center parking in back and down a side street.

"Just follow my lead," he tells me and I nod. We walk to the back entrance, there's security here but also a lot going on. We actually see other medics out here and I notice something else too.

"Owen all the medics have badges," I point out.

"No problem," he shrugs.

"No problem? There's security at the door and I'd prefer not to be arrested," I respond.

Owen steps up onto the sidewalk and holds his hand out to me, "Do you trust me?"

"Yes," I sigh taking his hand and he pulls me up, "You're not about to start singing A Whole New World are you?"

Owen scrunches his face at me, "Not even if I could remember the lyrics. Now then you take the guy with the sandy blonde hair and I'll take the girl. Just don't tell Eli you were flirting with a hot older paramedic."

"As if Owen or anyone else is ever going to find out anything I did this weekend. But how exactly is flirting with a guy going to get us into the con?" I inquire.

"Lift his badge, the other two are married I can see their rings," Owen says.

"Did you lead some secret life as a pickpocket or something? Never mind forgot who I was talking to for a second."

We walk over and Owen says hi, tells them we got called as backups so we'll probably just be sitting here all day. I watch him for a second and he manages to get the girl around the side of the ambulance so I figure I better start flirting with the only guy not wearing a wedding ring. I bat my eye lashes and bite my lip rolling it between my teeth and pretending to hang on his every word. While he's talking about why he became a paramedic I take a step closer to him and drag my finger over his chest. He talks a bit more and I step again closing all the space between us and now I'm holding his uniform. While he's mid-sentence into telling me about his first call I kiss him. I keep my mouth closed but kiss him hard enough that he's distracted while I unclip his badge. Owen and the girl are still on the other side of the ambulance so I tell the guy I need to grab my partner so we can check in, the other two guys are laughing at the one I just kissed. I smack Owen's arm and tell him we should check in and he stops making out with the girl. He winks and says he'll see her later and we start walking to the entrance switching the badges we stole. We really look nothing like the pictures on the badges but the security guys at the entrance really don't look at the pictures just the badges.

"Okay we're in so what now?" I question as we begin walking through the convention. All I can think is this would be paradise for Wes and Connor, even Eli and Adam would be geeking out right now. There's a ton of people in costume, a bunch of various booths with different things to buy or someone involved in the industry that people are getting autographs from.

"We just need to find a place to change, follow me," he responds.

"I think we'll need new badges when we take off our paramedics uniforms," I point out looking at the entrance badges for people that paid to get in.

"Nah you just need those to get in, we're already in," Owen tells me.

I follow him around the convention hall, which is very large, until we find an empty conference room and go in. Owen locks the door and turning our backs to each other we start changing. When I turn around I giggle, Owen really does look like a blue haired genie, not sure that he really looks like he's from any particular comic book or sci-fi movie but there are so many random costumes here I doubt it matters. I look like a generic space girl from the sixties. Owen takes the spray on glitter and takes off the vest, once he's thoroughly coated his chest, arms and face with glitter he puts the vest back on. While he does that I put on the lipstick and eye shadow just using the little mirror that comes with the eye shadow. We stuff the uniforms into the medical bag but take off the badges; we drop the badges near the first aid room so someone will find them.

"Alright what now Peggy?"

"We enjoy the con, like the proper freaks that we are," Owen responds and I laugh.

We walk around people watching, there's so many people in costume and some are more elaborate than others. A few people even take our picture, I guess we look pretty good for slapping costumes together last minute, maybe it's just that we look very odd. When I see a booth with Goon comics and find out the guy sitting there is one of the major illustrators I decide to get autographs for Eli and Adam. We stay for a couple of hours and leave with a bag full of freebies plus the autographs, it was rather entertaining actually and really amazing to see the lengths people go through to make some of their costumes.

"You two look awesome," Josie grins when she sees us come back in the shop.

"Yeah not bad for last minute costumes," Owen smiles.

"I have to get pictures but not here, my parents own the shop and they should be back in an hour to relieve me for lunch," she tells us.

"Lunch sounds good I'm starving, we'll go get lunch and be back," I comment.

Owen and I walk down the street and find a deli, we get a lot of looks but with the convention in town no one pays too much attention. We finish lunch and walk back to the thrift store, hanging with Josie until her parents come in. They recognize us from our picture and she tells them she's going to walk with us to the park to get pictures of us in these costumes. There's a little park just down the street and this is where we go. First she gets a picture of us just standing next to each other Owen has his arms crossed like a genie and I'm doing a Charlie's Angels type pose with my plastic space pistol. Then Owen picks me up putting me on his shoulder and she gets another picture of us. She thanks us and walks off to have lunch and we walk back to the car.

"So are we going to spend the rest of the day like this?" I question.

"Away from the convention probably not, we do need somewhere to clean up and change though," he says.

Owen finds a restaurant that's mostly empty and we go in splitting up to the washrooms and changing back into our clothes. Owen has at least washed the glitter from his face when he returns. I washed off the lipstick and eye shadow changing back into jeans and a long sleeve shirt with my jacket. I put the boots back on from the costume.

"Where to now Peggy?" I ask when we meet up at car again.

"Well we've got a couple of hours to kill so what do you feel up to? We've still got about $300 but we could hustle guys at pool again," Owen comments.

"I don't think we need to do any more pool hustling and anyway some of the same guys could be there. We could buy another ugly tie and go miniature golfing," I suggest.

"I have a better idea," Owen says stopping at the ice skating rink.

"Just ice skating? That seems rather boring for us," I remark.

"You're right we still have the wigs and I have the blue sash," Owen points out.

"That's better," I smile.

We get our wigs out of the car and the sash, we switch them so I'm wearing the short blue one and he's wearing the green bob. We get in, and get a few looks for the wigs, as we walk to the skate rental booth. We rent skates; stash my purse, our shoes and coats in a locker. When we're out on the ice Owen ties the sash onto one of his belt loops and one of mine.

"I have to warn you I haven't gone ice skating in about six years," I tell him as we begin skating.

"Don't worry I've been skating every day for the last several years. I'll try to stop you from falling and if we do fall try and fall on me," Owen replies.

"Why does that sound like a really bad pickup line?" I laugh.

"If I was going to hit on you Jeremy I wouldn't use a bad pickup line," Owen replies and I smile.

We start skating, which of course is made all the more difficult by the sash that's tying us together. It only takes a couple of minutes before I nearly fall but Owen catches me. We skate for an hour and he keeps me from falling four times but I fall twice, once brings him down with me and nearly on top of me, the second time he stays upright while I fall on my butt. He uses the sash to pull me back up to my feet. After skating we drive back downtown, Owen parks at a drug store and tells me to wait in the car. He comes back with a bag and starts driving again parking at a bar and I look at the sign.

"You're joking right?" I question.

"Nope, come on we'll do it together although I think you should take the green wig back," Owen remarks taking it off his head and the blue one off mine. "Here glasses, little ones for you and big ones for me," he comments taking the glasses out of the bag, we put them on and go into the bar. "We'd like to sign up for karaoke competition," Owen tells the man at the bar.

The guy gives us a signup sheet and of course we put our names as Jeremy & Peggy Edigan. We take a seat watching the current guy on stage and look at the competition rules. It's pretty basic every contest is given a song chosen by the audience; the audience scores 1 to 10 on singing ability, creativity and showmanship. The top five contestants move onto the final elimination round.

"So are we married this time or twins?" I ask him.

"We could be married twins," he responds and I laugh.

"I don't think that sort of incestuous relationship will win us any favors with these people," I remark.

"Yeah good point, married then we'll get better songs that way," Owen says just as the person on stage finishes.

We vote through the bar website accessible through our smart phones. Owen and I wait through five more contestants before it's our turn.

"Next up is Jeremy and Peggy Edigan, a married couple from Toronto, vote now on their song and be sure to give them a challenging duet," the emcee says to the audience and gives us too mics. "Okay," he says looking at a computer screen, "the audience has voted and you'll be singing Summer Nights a classic from Grease."

"Just remember," Owen whispers in my ear as the music begins, "it's not how well you sing it's how much fun you're having."

I smile and start singing the lyrics as they scroll over the screen. I actually know the lyrics pretty well since it's one of Jenna's favorite movies. Owen and I already look ridiculous with our glasses and wigs so we over play our parts. Doing over exaggerated pantomime to the lyrics, I'm sure I sound terrible but we're having fun and the audience is cheering. We leave the stage when we're done and sit back down, we won't know our score until the end. When we sit back down we decide that we're hungry and order burgers and shakes from the bar. There's only two more contestants after us, one trio and a guy in his thirties. The emcee gets up after the last contestant and looks at the computer again.

"Okay our top three are Kandys Kyd, Todd Ostos and Moira Castillo and Jeremy and Peggy Edigan," the emcee announces and we cheer for ourselves along with everyone else. "All of you please come to the stage, you'll each get a song randomly picked by the computer and you'll be singing two minutes from that song. It's elimination time so the audience will be voting yes or no while you sing. Anything under 51% yes means elimination, Kandys you're up first."

The woman in her late forties, and dressed so very inappropriately for her age, has to sing "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston. She's not very good but she shows a lot of chest and barely makes it through with a 52% yes vote. The other couple we're competing against is given "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," by Elton John. The couple is just a few years older than us and they can actually sing but they don't have much energy they just sort of sing and smile. Still they get a %71 yes vote.

"Alright Jeremy and Peggy you two will be singing," the emcee pauses waiting for the computer to pick a song for us.

"Awesome," I giggle when I see the computer chose "A Whole New World" from Aladdin.

"Should have kept my genie costume on," Owen comments rolling his eyes as the music starts. While waiting for his lyrics to start Owen spins me around like a ballet dancer, he continues as he begins singing. "I can show you the world shining, shimmering, splendid
tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide? I can open your eyes," when he sings this he stops spinning me and dips me. Take you wonder by wonder over, sideways and under on a magic carpet ride," Owen straightens me up and we sway to the music as he continues. "A whole new world a new fantastic point of view, no one to tell us no or where to go or say we're only dreaming," Owen's finishes and kisses my cheek and now it's my part.

"A whole new world a dazzling place I never knew, but when I'm way up here, it's crystal clear that now I'm in a whole new world with you," I sing and spin Owen around as he sings backup for my part.

"Now I'm in a whole new world with you."

"Unbelievable sights, indescribable feelings soaring, tumbling, freewheeling through an endless diamond sky, a whole new world," I sing pantomiming the lyrics and smiling at the audience.

"Don't you dare close your eyes," he sings and covers my eyes with his hand.

"A hundred thousand things to see," I sing removing Owen's hand from my eyes and sticking my tongue out at him.

"Hold your breath, it gets better," Owen sings covering my mouth this time and the audience is laughing.

I remove Owen's hand so I can sing, "I'm like a shooting star, I've come so far, I can't go back to where I used to be."

"A whole new world."

"Every turn a surprise," I sing and Owen picks me up with one arm.

"With new horizons to pursue."

"Every moment gets better," he sings and sets me down because we sing the next part together.

"I'll chase them anywhere there's time to spare let me share this whole new world with you."

"A whole new world," Owen sings taking my hand and we start swaying back and forth. We lifts our arms and the audience sways with us.

"A whole new world."

"That's where we'll be," Owen sings spinning me around putting his arm around me and putting my back against his chest.

"That's where we'll be."

"A thrilling chase," Owen sings spinning me out of his arm.

"A wondrous place," I sing and the last line we have to do together.

"For you and me."

We stop and spin around again as the music ends, everyone's clapping and even though we can't sing as well as the others we get an 86% yes. Our energy pays off giving us the highest score and we high five. Kandys goes again and gets "99 Luftballoons" by Nena in it's original German. It's a really hard song and she can't sing most of the lyrics. She's eliminated after getting only a 39% yes vote, even though she showed more chest this time. Todd and Moira go next and get "Tell Him" by Barbara Streisand and Celine Dion. It's really a duet for two girls but they sing pretty well and smile earning them a 55%. Now Owen and I get "Elephant Love Medley" from Moulin Rouge. Since it's from a movie I've seen we just play the parts as we're singing, all of which are taken from other songs. Again we put a lot of acting and pantomime into it, keeping our energy up and despite the not so great singing we score a 92% yes vote.

"Alright I think we have a winner I don't think we need any more rounds Jeremy and Peggy are the winners," the emcee says when we're done handing us a little gold cup that says Karaoke Champions.

Everyone claps and we bow before leaving the bar. It's after eight now and we still have to drive home.

"See we're winners and you doubted me when I wanted to do a karaoke competition," Owen scolds as we get back in the car.

"Sorry I will never doubt you again," I reply.

We spend the whole drive home talking and laughing about the weekend. When Owen pulls up to my house I don't want to get out of the car.

"It was amazing, I'll see you in school tomorrow Peggy," I grin getting out of the car and grabbing my bag.

"See you tomorrow Jeremy, it's kind of going to suck going back to school," Owen says. I walk to the front door, waving to him before I unlock the front door.

"How was your weekend at your dad's?" Glen asks while my mom just waves hello.

"Incredible," I smile going upstairs to my room.

(OWEN)

My alarm goes off at five and I groan but I have Ice Hounds practice this morning and I have to get up. I turn off the alarm and get up, pulling on some clothes, I grab all my stuff and my backpack driving to school, the bus is waiting and takes us to the arena. After getting all our gear on the coaches call us to attention.

"As you all know Owen is now a student assistant coach, Saunders you'll be working closely with him. The rest of you will show him respect not only as a coach but member of this team. Alright let's start with some puck drills," Coach says and blows his whistle.

"You know what they say Owen if you can't do, teach and since you hardly get put in a game I hope you're a better coach," Dallas comments lacing some venom into his tone.

"Better than you could ever be," I shoot back.

I'm paired with Cam for all the drills, for an hour and a half we're worked hard. Then we shower and change getting back on the bus to go to DeGrassi. The whole team gets out and walks into school, all of us going to our lockers but most of us have lockers all in the same hallway. I open my locker and smile because Clare left me a gift. There's red fuzzy handcuffs with a note attached that says: Next time we'll use these but I get to choose how. There's letterhead from that B&B we stayed at the first night, it has a lipstick kiss on it and a note that says: We should stay here again it was fun. And there's a picture of Aladdin & Jasmine on the flying carpet, on the back it says: We make beautiful music together. Nothing is too specific and she made it just vague enough and somewhat double entendre enough for it to sound like I spent the whole weekend having kinky sex.

"Shit Milligan it sounds like you had one hell of a weekend," Dallas comments.

"Yeah it was pretty wild, costumes, medics, a couple hotels and bondage," I grin and it's all true I'm just not getting specific.

"Damn we seriously need to meet this chick of yours," Henry says.

"Like I said before I'm not bringing her around you lot, the girl is mine and I'm not corrupting her with you," I respond shoving Henry playfully and putting the gifts in my backpack before getting out my Families in Canada book.

I see Clare in the hallway, she doesn't see me though Eli is kissing her, or talking to her really close. We all go to the caf to grab some food before classes start. Dallas of course tells Bianca all about the gifts in my locker from my "mystery girl" but Bianca just rolls her eyes. The morning goes by fairly quickly and Coach asks me to meet him on my spare last period. Me and all the Coaches look at video of the Snow Leopards, the team we're playing on Friday, so we can strategize. I stay with them for a couple of hours and by the time I leave school is out. People are still here though, mostly working on the play or the school newspaper. I see Clare here too meeting with Miss Sauve, Principal Simpson and her mom. Clare is not happy, she's crying, looks distressed in fact. I want to know what's going on but I can't just linger in the hallway. So I go to the weight room and find Henry there, lifting weights, a lot of them.

"Check…it…out," he huffs between reps, "I'm up…to 270."

"Impressive you've been pumping the iron hard, working out like crazy these last couple of weeks," I comment.

"Yeah I'll never play another bad game again," he says putting the barbell back.

He goes to the stationary bike and I use the free weights. After about half an hour I go back to where I saw Clare but she's gone now so I get my stuff and go home. I text Clare when I get home but she doesn't respond so I eat dinner and keep texting her asking what's going on, I finally get a reply but all she says is nothing is going on. I don't believe her at all but I'm not going to push if she doesn't want to tell me.

"Owen your father's car broke down and I need to go get him can you go get your brother from Maya's house please?" Mom asks coming downstairs.

"Yeah fine," I huff slightly annoyed because I just got home a short time ago.

I grab my keys and get in my car again; Maya's house is just a couple blocks away. Katie answers the door when I ring the bell and calls for Tristan. He comes out of Maya's room with her, Tris hugs Maya and says goodbye to Katie while I'm already walking back to the car. On the way home I see Henry coming out of an alley, he's wearing a black coat with the hood put up but I know it's him. Two guys follow him out, guys I've seen around the ravine a few times, they look at Henry and walk in another direction. Whatever Henry was doing in the alley I know it can't be good.

Update next Monday probably starting the next day and including Clare confessing to Owen about Asher.

A Whole New World lyrics by Alan Menken and Tim Rice.