I have to say, this chapter was surprisingly easy to write compared to the last one. Can you believe it took me three days to write the scene where Meli told Gen she was bi? It was ridiculous. Anyway, I suspect this chapter was so easy because Diesel hijacked it. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting when I started out. Happy reading.

Chapter 35

"What went down with those ladies?" I asked, plonking down on the couch in the break room between Lester and Bobby. "What did they want?"

"Ranger couldn't fit them in," Tank replied, grabbing a water from the fridge and joining us. "Carter organised them an appointment for next week. Why are you so interested?"

I shrugged. I really had no idea why I was so interested. The best I could do was that I was in the habit of asking more questions than usual of late. It felt like I was starting every conversation with a question. I wonder how long I can keep that habit up before I get stuffed in the washing machine? Actually, I wonder if I still fit in the washing machine. When I was younger, Taylor, one of the younger additions to the Lost Boys at the time, would stuff me in the washing machine down the hall from the control room when I got too annoying. He called it reverse hide and seek, or something. Looking back I don't really see the logic in it, and I'm fairly certain I knew we weren't playing a game, despite him making out like we were.

"I guess I'm just curious," I said and swivelled my body so that my feet were resting in Lester's lap and I was leaning against the side of Bobby's chest. "So Papa's still in meetings?" And a smooth topic change executed by yet another question. They all nodded. "Any idea when he'll be done?"

"Another couple of hours at least," Lester said, looking at his watch.

I grabbed up Bobby's arm, which was resting on my stomach and checked his watch. It was five o'clock. Papa would probably make it home at about seven-thirty, at which point he would grab a small bite to eat for dinner and go off to his home office to finalise some stuff on his computer before going to bed. The chances of me spending any amount of quality time with the man were slim to zilch, not that I wasn't used to this kind of occurrence. The year I turned thirteen he'd started extending the amount of time he spent working. He was no longer walking through the door to the apartment at exactly ten past five in the evening.

I was still musing over Papa's work habits when Carter walked through the door.

"Front door is locked up for the night," he reported, grabbing a bottle of water and sitting down on the couch across from Lester, Bobby and I. He set the special deck of cards that I'd left with him this afternoon on the coffee table. "And I challenge you to a game of your own creation."

Lester and Bobby both looked at me and I shrugged again, just managing to jump of the couch before Lester's massive hands grabbed for me. I crossed the space to perch on the arm of Tank's chair and waved my hand in an indication for them all to proceed.

Bobby flicked through the deck Carter had presented, inspecting them closely at a much slower rate than Carter had when I'd first handed him the cards. He then handed them to Lester, who also looked through the stack of cards before placing them back on the table, spearing Carter with a narrow eyed glare.

"Deal," he simply said, nudging the cards to him.

An hour and a half later they were playing two against one, on the same hand that originally started as Lester versus Carter. Bobby and Lester were hunched over their hand, looking anxiously from it to the table and back. It looked as if there wasn't a whole lot they could do at this point, and Carter seemed to be catching their "oh damn" vibes. There was a huge grin plastered on his face as he finished off his meatball sub and placed the wrapper on the table with everyone else's – we'd sent Cal for subs after about forty-five minutes, as the break room had begun to fill with Rangemen coming off shift.

"Do you forfeit yet?" Carter asked.

"No," Bobby said flatly. "We can't forfeit."

"Our reputations depend on this," Lester added

I leaned over the back of the couch behind them, looking over their shoulders. Not necessarily to see if I could help, more to see just how jiggered they were. I was assessing their ability to screw up at their own game when there was collective intake of breath throughout the room. At first I thought it was just Papa entering the break room and everyone noticing that they hadn't hidden their fast food wrappers. Then a nicely tanned hand reached over my shoulder, plucked a card from Lester's hand and threw it down on the table. Definitely not Papa's hand.

"Diesel?" I asked without turning around.

"Yep," Tank said.

"He just appeared directly behind me, didn't he?"

"Sure did," Carter replied, staring in open mouthed awe. "How does he do that?"

"And how does he know how to play this game?" Bobby added.

I looked around the guys. "Why are we talking like he isn't here?" I turned to look at Diesel, but he was gone. "Dang it! I'm definitely never gonna get used to that. Why did he disappear again?" Before anyone could answer my question Diesel had reappeared before me, grabbed me by the arms and...

The lights went off and I felt like I was being suffocated. I wanted to scream but couldn't gather enough breath to do so. I wanted to thrash my limbs about to assure myself that everything that was supposed to be around me was still there, but I couldn't feel them. All I could feel was Diesel's hands on my upper arms, firm yet gentle at the same time. It was terrifying. I was trying to wrap my head around what was going on when suddenly light was spearing my eyes. I blinked rapidly and felt my stomach roll and my knees go weak. Diesel still held on to my shoulders as the bile rose in my throat, so it was all I could do to lean forward a little and vomit. All over his shoes. Again.

"What is with you?" Diesel asked, exasperated. "Do you dislike my shoes? Is that it? Would you like to tell me what's wrong with them?"

I shook my head, trying to keep the rest of my dinner down as the room spun again. "What did you do to me?" I managed to choke out, wiping sweat from my forehead. "What just happened?" He didn't answer as he toed off his shoes and carefully led me to a chair to sit down. It was then that I noticed we were the only two in the room, and that room wasn't the break room anymore. I couldn't help the panic that rose within me as I looked around the unfamiliar surroundings. "Where am I?" I demanded. "Where have you taken me? What do you want!"

Diesel leaned against the desk in front of me. "Calm down," he said. "Watch." He waved his hand slowly in front of his face and the lighting in the room changed. It was more dim, just a single lamp on the desk glowing. I could hear faint noises coming from what must have been a hallway outside the room. As they became louder I realised it was actually a very animated, very melodic voice. Just one voice. She must have been on the phone.

Looking around the room anew, seeking a place to hide, I took in the 'lived in' couch that didn't match the armchair. The pale wood coffee table just peeking out from a under a load of laundry and a dozen stuffed animals. In the corner beside the television was a purple toy box that had been left open and had toys hanging out of it. I spied a few princess dolls and deduced that the child that lived here was probably a girl. And judging by the early start educational toys spread across the floor, I would say she was just a baby.

Having let my eyes wander too long, I was left with absolutely no time to duck and hide when a shadow spilled over the threshold. I tensed as I watched the woman enter, talking enthusiastically to a sweet little girl with dark curls perched on her hip. Amazingly, she did not notice the two intruders in her home. At all. Thinking perhaps she was simply absorbed in the child's big, gummy grin, I spoke up to make an excuse for our presence.

"Um, hi," I started, really unsure of what I was going to say to explain to her that we'd simply popped in. "I'm really sorry about , um... well.. about us being here I suppose... I didn't really have a say in the ma-."

"She can't here you," Diesel said quietly. "She can't see you either. She doesn't know we're here."

"How can she not know we're here?" I demanded. "We're sitting in her living room!"

Diesel shook his head slightly. "Not her living room. She doesn't live here."

"Look," I said sternly. I was starting to get very frustrated now that my fear had worn off and my stomach was rolling as much. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Just watch. Please?"

I crossed my arms over my chest, but said nothing as I sat back in the chair more comfortably. The woman entered the room slowly, seeming to dance with the child at the same time. When she reached the circle of lamp light I finally got a good look at her. She look vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place her face, nor her voice as she spoke softly to the baby she was placing on the floor near the coffee table.

"Do you think mommy will mind if I sort out her laundry?" she asked the little girl.

"Teddy," she said in reply, holding up a brown bear with a pink ribbon.

"That's right!" the woman enthused. "Would Teddy like to help fold laundry?"

"Teddy," she said again, pulling herself up on the coffee table and dragging Teddy to the woman.

I leaned forward to rest my arms on the desk and glanced at Diesel. There was a soft smile forming on his face. "Do you know her?" I asked, curiously taking in the twinkle beginning to shine in his eye.

He nodded, eyes fixed on the woman. "That's my wife."

"Janelle?" I asked, mentally slapping my forehead as I remembered all the photos he'd shown me. "Is that your daughter then?"

This time he shook his head from side to side, and cut his eyes to me. "That's you."

My mouth, I felt sure, was hanging open so wide that my jaw must have been about a millimetre above the floor. "How can that be me?" I asked. "I'm me... Aren't I?"

He chuckled at my uncertainty. "Have you ever seen A Christmas Carol?" I nodded, but didn't quite see the relevance until he added, "Think of me as the ghost of Christmas past. Except this isn't Christmas. This is just a random day in your life that I thought you might like to witness again."

Returning my attention to the woman and... myself... I watched with a new found interest. This is what my life was like before Papa, I thought. This is where I lived with Mama. Just like that the thought hit me: Where was Mama? "If I'm here, where's Mama," I asked Diesel.

He didn't answer, simply got to his feet and held out his hand for me to take. I eyed it suspiciously for a moment, wondering if he was gonna make me do the disappearing act again. I'm pretty sure I didn't want that to happen, since I dislike throwing up almost as much as I dislike overly frilly dresses.

"I'm not gonna pop you anywhere," he assured me. "I'm just gonna lead you to where you Mama is. I promise." I looked from his face to his hands a couple more times before I finally took it and he led me out of the room and down the hall to the kitchen. And there she was, sitting at the round table. Her head was resting in her hand as she leaned on the table top; in the other she held a pen, clicking it constantly. In front of her was a fresh piece of paper and several scrunched ones. There were used tissues littering the ground around her.

As I watched, she sniffed and pushed her curls away from her face. In the moment I could see her face before her hair fell back down to cover it I noted her bright blue eyes, shimmering with new tears and puffy from old ones. There were wet streaks down both her cheeks. Her nose was red and her mouth was set in a grim line. Obviously, she was upset.

"What's happened?" I asked Diesel. "Why is she crying?"

He picked up one of the scrunched pieces of paper and smoothed it on his leg, I noticed though, that despite him holding the piece of paper, it was still on the table. Pretty sure even the ghost of Christmas past couldn't do that. He handed me the paper and I read the words written there.

Dearest Maggie,

I can't believe I have to write this. It's the hardest thing to ever happen in my life and it's breaking my heart to do so, but it needs to be done. I needed to let you know just how much you meant to me. Will always mean to me.

And then there were some words that were scribbled out again and again. I read the words twice, trying to understand what they meant and on the third time through it hit me. "She's writing the letter that came with the first memory box," I breathed, setting the paper back on the table and moving closer to my mother.

She had the pen poised over the paper and was staring resolutely at it, as if willing the words to appear on the page. She had hooked her hair behind her ear so that her entire was face was visible again. I took the opportunity to examine her features more closely and discovered it was just like looking into a mirror, except she was something like twenty years older than me and her skin tone was just a smidge lighter. Other than that though. The eyes, the hair, even the nose was almost identical.

I moved around the table and sat in a chair across from her. Close enough that I could pretend I was having a normal moment with my mother, but far enough away that I could remember that I couldn't interact with her.

"She's beautiful," I whispered, openly staring as she wiped her face on her sleeves and sat back from the table. She locked her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Just a moment. Barely long enough for her to have taken in the colour, really. And then she was on her feet pacing.

"I can't do this!" she cried out suddenly, stopping near the doorway. "I can't and I won't! I don't want to!"

"You'll regret it later if you don't," I heard Diesel say and turned to look at where his voice had come from, noticing that there were two of him. The Diesel who had brought me here was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest as watched the scene take place. The new Diesel – or rather, old Diesel... actually, technically young Diesel... cripes this is confusing... – was seated in a cross legged position on the bench top. "You need to do this for your peace of mind," he told Mama. My Diesel looked over past-Diesel and nodded his approval at the stubble on his jaw and unbuttoned flannel shirt over plain white tee.

I rolled my eyes, focusing on what my mother was now saying.

"My peace of mind?" she asked, incredulous. "What peace of mind? I'm giving up my own flesh and blood because of some crazed lunatic who thinks I don't deserve to live or be happy. How am I supposed to find peace of mind in that?"

Past-Diesel shrugged his shoulders and slid to the floor, crossing the distance between where he'd perched and where my mother had stopped in two easy strides. "If you don't want to do this for yourself, do it for Maggie. I'm sure it will mean a lot to her in fourteen years time to know that you loved her and wanted her to know how you died." He led her back to the table and her abandoned stationary, easing her into the chair and crouching down next to her. He placed the pen in her hand and moved it toward the paper.

"I can't do this," Mama told him softly, and the tears I heard clogging her throat almost made me cry myself. "I can't tell my daughter lies."

"Sometimes people need to be told lies," Past-Diesel reasoned.

"Yes," Mama agreed, "But about their own mother's death?"

"Would you rather endanger her life?"

"How would telling her the truth endanger her?" she argued, throwing the pen down on the table again. "By the time she reads this it'll all be over anyway, right? So what's the harm?"

"The harm is, she'll be a teenager, and teenagers are impressionable. You can't tell her the truth in this letter. I'm sorry, it's just the way it is."

"Right," Mama said, nodding absently. "Impressionable teenager. Can't fill her head with fantasies of," she spun her hands around in the air vaguely, "all of this. So I have to lie to my daughter from 'beyond the grave," she air quoted. "I can't for the life of my think of how to phrase that. Hi, I'm you're dead mother that you probably don't remember at all, and I'm here to tell you that I love you and I died of an inoperable brain tumour."

"Anything sounds bad when you phrase it like that," Past-Diesel scoffed. He looked into her eyes solidly for a moment, thinking, before he stood and moved behind her. "Imagine she's sitting right there," he said, indicating to where I was sitting.

I cast panicked eyes to my Diesel. "Freeeeee-keeeeeeee," I said.

"I know," he intoned.

Past –Diesel continued, "What would you say to her if you could tell her in person?"

Mama scoffed at that, rolling her eyes at the same time. "I can tell her in person, Diesel. She just won't comprehend or remember it."

"No," Past-Diesel said. "That's not what I meant. If you could talk to Maggie in fourteen years time, how would you explain the events of the past few weeks?"

"You mean how would I explain the events of the past few weeks that we're fabricating as a cover story to what actually happened in the past few weeks?" she asked

"Yes."

She sighed, suddenly looking very tired. "I guess I'd want to let her know how much I've enjoyed the time we've had together," she started, looking back at Past-Diesel.

"Don't tell me." He grabbed her head and gently turned it so that she was looking directly at me. "Tell Maggie."

Another sigh left her lips and she shook her head, a slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Maggie," she breathed, then glanced at Diesel again. He made a 'go on' gesture, and in return she made a 'shoo' gesture. "Can I have a moment alone?" she asked. "It's kinda awkward doing this with you looking over my shoulder." She waited for him to walk out the door before returning her gaze to me... I mean, the chair. "Maggie," she started again. "You can't believe how much I've adored the past year with you. Watching you grow. It involved a lot of smelly diapers and some random crying from both of us... er, the crying, I mean. Not the diapers. I use a toilet..." She laughed to herself then and added on the side, "I can't even talk straight to an imaginary fifteen year old."

With a shake of her head, she laid her hands on the table and continued, "I've loved every minute of our time together, but unfortunately, it seems we don't have much left." She paused to quickly write that down before she forgot it then lifted her head again. This time, she continued all the way through, telling me about her migraines and the doctor's visit, and finally the memory box. When she'd finished speaking it all out loud, she had tears in her eyes again, but was smiling softly as she transferred our one sided conversation to the paper I would receive in the future... or had received a couple of days ago. It all depends on how you looked at it.

Carefully, she folded the sheet in three and slipped into the box that had been sitting off on the counter and carried the lot out of the room. I scraped back my chair and followed with Diesel on my heels.

Back in the living room, Mama handed the box to Diesel solemnly. "I don't want her to have this until she's old enough to understand properly," she said. "Fifteen maybe."

"What about the letter about the poison you wrote for Ranger?" Janelle asked. "

Surprisingly, she pulled the letter in question from her back pocket and stared at it for a few moments. "He'll probably hate me for it," she sighed. "But I don't want him to have it until he's come to terms with my death completely. Any time in the first couple of years and the pain is going too be too fresh. He'll want to come after the guy himself. We have to wait until he's well and truly dead."

Janelle, was standing behind the couch with me (it still sounded weird to think about it like that) on her hip so that the three of them formed a bit a triangle. She was quite short, I noted. With beautiful gorgeous light brown hair and dark brown eyes. I stared at her as she spoke. "We should probably time it after the memory box," she said, nodding to the box in question. "There should be conditions that need to be met before we give him the letter."

"Magenta needs to be fifteen," Mama said.

"And she should have already received the memory box," Janelle added slowly. I was getting the sense that I'd seen her somewhere before, but not in the photos. I'd seen her moving. And walking. And her voice sounded familiar too...

You've heard her on the phone, my brain reminded me. But that didn't explain the rest of it. For now, I shook away the feeling and refocused on the conversation.

"The poison guy should be dead," Past Diesel contributed. "Long dead. Half decomposed... or maybe cremated. I wouldn't put it past him to dig up a body just to kick the shit out of it."

Mama chuckled lightly at that comment. "And it needs to be before it wears off," she said, her face turning sad again as she looked at baby me.

"That's hard to time," Diesel told her. "There's no way of knowing how long it will last. It depends on a myriad of factors, including state of mind and stress level. Not to mention how much resistance the mind puts up."

Somewhere in the course of a matter of seconds, I had lost the thread of conversation. I had no idea what they were talking about anymore. I shot a questioning look at my Diesel, but he shook his head and clasped my upper arms. "It's time for us to go," he told me and then everything suddenly went black again.

To review? Or not to review? That is the question. Please, if you're reading this, drop me a line to let me know your thoughts. What's up with what they were talking about at the very end? WHO KNOWS?