A/N: I'm pretty proud of this chapter, I don't know why. I just have a good feeling about it.
8.
I'm not exactly sure why myself, but for some reason I ended up going to Juno with my confusion about what'd happened in bed.
I guess since she's married, she'd have some kind of 'insider information' that I lack or something.
When I explained the situation to her and asked her what she thought, she just laughed for a long time and shook her head.
"accidental role-playing? I can honestly say I've never heard of something like that happening accidentally," she says when I just keep looking at her questioningly, really waiting for an answer.
"role-playing?" I ask, feeling even more confused than when I came here.
"wait, like 'sexy police-officer' kind of role-playing?" I ask incredulously. "but it wasn't anything like that."
Juno laughs again.
"really? Then what was it like? Because from the way you explained it, it sounded a lot like 'sexy police-officer' to me," she says. "with you and Apollo being the interrogators and Hermes being the suspect."
I think about that for a second and suddenly realize she's right.
"well...I guess, if you look at it like that. But that wasn't what I was doing. Hell, I'm not sure what I was doing. All I know is I had all this crazy energy inside of me and I had to do something with it," I say, shrugging.
"right, and you ended up accidentally role-playing because of it. I can't tell you much about that, seeing as this is the first time in my many years that I've ever heard of that happening unplanned," she says.
"well, you learn something new every day," I just mumble before getting up and walking back into the living room.
"where did Mina go?" I ask, sitting down next to Pollo.
H is still sleeping, we really wore him out so I don't think he'll be up any time soon.
I'll just have to make sure there's some dinner left for him when he does wake up.
"basement," Jove says, staring at the timelines intently as if looking for something he missed the last forty times he studied them.
I can't blame him.
Those stupid timelines are our only real lead on the doppelgängers.
"and why is Mina in the basement?" I ask.
"her wound still hasn't healed yet and she kept trying to go outside, so to keep her from running away – and possibly sharing our new little 'test' with the other doppelgängers – we've locked her into the basement," Jove says.
"okay, so that's where the fake Mina went, but where is the real one?" I ask.
Jove grits his teeth and looks up, glaring at me like I'd personally insulted him or something.
I cringe into Pollo's arms, trying to make myself as small as possible, make myself a smaller target if Jove decides to attack me and I can't stop the little shivers of fear running through my body.
Pollo rubs my arm to comfort me and Jove sighs.
"forgive me, I didn't mean to frighten you," he just says, going back to staring at the papers.
"he's been trying to find a pattern in the movements of the real us and the fake us, but so far we're coming up empty-handed. All of us have been 'replaced' with doppelgängers at some point, so we know they know our patterns, even the irrational ones, like when Hermes went off with Dio suddenly for some reason, leaving you with me, but we don't know anything about their patterns. Or about our own, for that matter. If we could find out what the doppelgängers are using to find out our patterns, maybe we can use that same trick to monitor theirs," Pollo explains.
"and also, if I can find out Athena's pattern, maybe I can find out where she went so suddenly and why she hasn't come back here yet. She wouldn't leave without telling someone here, especially knowing what she knows about the doppelgängers, but if she did tell someone and that someone wasn't actually one of us,..." Jove says and I sigh.
"then we might never find out what she told that person," I say and he nods.
"but none of us actually realized we had doppelgängers until the others told us they'd seen us at times when we couldn't possibly have been with them, right? So one thing we do know about the doppelgängers' pattern is that they might try to dictate our movements through trickery, but never through force," I say.
He looks up at me questioningly – at least he's not glaring anymore.
Old man he may be, but that guy is scary when he's angry – and I shrug.
"well, they never kidnapped us or made us go somewhere by force, right? Because we would obviously notice something was up if we were forced into the back of a van every now and then. They may have tricked us, like by giving us messages through the others telling us to go somewhere, but it was always in a roundabout way. Like Pollo's doppelgänger approaching Hermes as he and Dio were leaving the club, hoping that they would give the message for me to him, which he could then refrain from giving to me, ensuring that I would not go home like H probably told me to, but instead I'd stay at the club, waiting for H to return, because I didn't know that he wasn't going to return. That way they had, like, at least one or two hours of free play in my form, with nobody wondering why they were seeing me twice and no chance of my doppelgänger running into me at any point, so long as she stayed far away from the club where she knew I'd be, still waiting for H to return because nobody told me he wouldn't return," I say, not sure I'm explaining it correctly, but Pollo and Jove seem to understand what I'm trying to say, so I guess it's fine.
"and I guess they've been doing that a lot, which would explain why our 'patterns' are suddenly all over the place, even if they were far more predictable before this started. Take my situation again. Normally, when I go out to a club, I have a drink or two, dance a little, talk to some people. All in all, I'd stay there two, maybe three hours. A little more if I was having fun, but I normally wouldn't stay out all night, especially if my kids are with a nanny that night. However, that's exactly what I did. I stopped having fun after the first few minutes, so normally, if I'd been following my usual pattern, I'd have just gone home then. However, I didn't know when H was going to return, so I couldn't go home. I was basically forced to step outside my usual pattern, but in such a roundabout way that I didn't realize I was being forced at the time. And by being forced out of my usual pattern, I slipped into a completely different pattern. I had to stay in the club, because I had no idea where H had gone or when he'd be back. Because I couldn't leave the club, I accepted Pollo's invitation to have a few drinks with him. Because I had a few drinks with him, it was much easier for him to convince me to just stay all night, something that never would have happened had I not been forced out of my own pattern and into another one. So I don't actually think they know our patterns, I think they're creating them. Whoever we're dealing with, they know a great deal about human – or godly, whatever – psychology and they're using it to their full advantage to get us to do whatever is most convenient for them that we do," I say, taking a few deep breaths and smiling just because I feel like it.
Could be the lack of oxygen – from talking too much without taking breaks to breathe – to my brain making me woozy.
"but if that's true, then there's an easy way to counter it," Mina says, walking into the door like she'd never left.
I look at her hand, but I don't see any evidence of a (former) injury there, so I guess it's okay.
I see the other two do the same.
"simply plan ahead for everything we're going to do and tell at least three random people about any sudden changes that may have to be made to that planning. That way, not only do we always know where everyone is, so we can easily get to them when we need to, but it'll also be impossible for the doppelgängers to force us out of our normal patterns. Because, even if they'll know about the patterns – because, let's face it, the odds of us being able to keep a detailed list like that secret from them when we don't know who or when they'll be is impossibly small – they won't be able to make any changes to it. If we just decide to tell any three random people, and make sure they aren't always the first three people we happen to meet, they'll never be able to make sure they're all three of those people, unless they take over all our identities, all at once. And if they could get away with that, I have no doubt they would've done that by now. In other words, if we act as unpredictable as we can while staying safe inside our preplanned patterns, their knowledge of human psychology won't do them any good, since everything we do will be both predetermined and completely random. If we don't think about it at all, they won't get very far trying to change the way we think," she says.
"well, look at that. Das wunderkind is back," I say happily.
"you're not too dumb yourself, winter-girl, I never would have come up with the idea that they were steering us," Mina says, smiling sweetly.
I laugh and shrug.
"you say that, but you probably would have come up with the fact that they're experts in psychology, because even if you look like someone, in order to convince that person's closest friends and family that you are that person, you'd have to be good at psychology – being able to avoid or deal with any and all suspicion those people might have of you –, acting – being able to talk with the same accent, using the same kinds of words and body-language that person would use,... –, and observation, which is just another part of psychology – being able to pick up the smallest hints from your surroundings that'll tell you you're doing something either right or wrong and quickly adjust your performance to those little hints," I say.
"and if you'd figured that out, you'd already know they're experts in psychology and it would've been a small step from there to figure they're also good at using psychology against us. So actually, you would have figured it out, though maybe a little slower and in a more roundabout way than I did," I finish, making Mina laugh. "you just gave an impressive speech which showed your superior intelligence...to prove your point that your intelligence 'isn't all that'," she says. "guess that was a pretty stupid thing for me to do, huh?" I ask, making her laugh again and finally concede to my weird logic.
"but then again, by doing something stupid like that, you just won an 'argument' with the goddess of intelligence and wisdom," Jove says, smiling. "which is not something you can do unless you are extremely intelligent."
"so I'm super-smart...becauseI'm weird?" I ask and everyone nods.
"awesome," I just say.
"where are the kids, by the way? They were with Juno when I went upstairs, but I just talked to her and they weren't with her," I say, suddenly realizing I've been forgetting and ignoring my kids a lot lately.
Well, it was fine while they were with Juno, since she is Elizabeth's grandmother and parents send their kids off to go play with their grandparents all the time – even if Alex isn't really related to Juno, I'm hoping she'll start to see him as her grandson as well, like Hermes sees him as his son – but if they're not with Juno, I at least want to know where they are and if they need me.
"wait, you just talked to Hera?" Jove asks.
I sigh, not because of the question, but because apparently everyone is going to start using the Greek names.
Normally I'd be okay with that, except it feels really weird to call these people the names of the Greek gods, even if they are the Greek gods, which I'm still not sure they are.
"yeah, I was with her right before I came into the room," I say, shrugging, once again deciding to ignore the names-thing.
"Hera took the kids to a nearby park. She figured you wouldn't mind, since you were upstairs and didn't need them for anything. She wanted them to at least get to know their father's family – since Hermes seems to have already decided to just treat both of them as his own – in a more relaxed, fun environment. It doesn't exactly install happy, loving feelings in them to be around us when we're constantly leaving them to their own devices in favor or stressing over some problem of ours that has little to do with them. Ares and Artemis went with them," Jove says.
"crap. That means we now have another doppelgänger to deal with. And if she has one, it's not unreasonable to think that you also have one or that you'll be the next to 'get' one," I say.
"is she still in the kitchen?" Mina asks.
I shrug.
"I have no idea, we were done talking, so I just left and she stayed behind, but that was about ten minutes ago. I can't tell you if she's still there," I say.
Mina looks at the kitchen-door, but doesn't make a move to go there.
"they're getting ballsy," she just says instead. "they must've known that we know mother isn't supposed to be inside the house, but they're sending her doppelgänger in anyway, despite the risk of her getting caught."
"or maybe because of the risk of getting caught. Maybe it's an initiation," I suggest, making them all look at me questioningly.
"like when you want to join this elite club and you have to do some extremely difficult test to prove your worth. Sending her in here while there's such a great risk of her getting caught would be the perfect test, because if she can get away with that, she'd have proven she can a) convince at least some of us that she's the real one, b) handle the pressure of being so close to getting caught without it messing up her act, and c) possibly handle a situation where she does get caught by convincing us we're wrong about whatever we think we know. Those are the three things you'd definitely need to be able to do if you're going to pretend to be someone – especially a goddess – in the face of her loved ones, people who have spent years – in her case thousands upon thousands of years – with her and who know her better than anyone else in the world. Plus, if she manages to pull this off, pretending to be her when we know she's not supposed to be here, that proves that she'll have absolutely no problem pretending to be her in a situation where she is supposed to be here," I explain.
Pollo stares at me for a long time and then smiles.
"you know, I just realized that not only are you pretty and fun, you are also almost as intelligent and smart as Athena is, only in a far less annoying know-it-all kind of way," he says, making me laugh.
"not even close, you're obviously biased, but even so...well, if I'm going to keep two guys happy, I'm gonna need as many amazing characteristics as possible," I say.
The door opens and Juno walks in from the hallway, prompting Mina to storm into the kitchen, hoping the fake Juno is still there and she can catch her.
Guess she wasn't sure if she could trust me, so she didn't want to insult her mother by accusing her of being a doppelgänger.
Since Juno is here now, that means that if there is another Juno in the kitchen, one of them is fake.
"don't be mad at me, be mad at her," Alex – Ares – says, walking in after Juno and pointing at her.
"be mad? Why?" I ask, a bit confused.
Then a horrible thought pops up into my head and I stand up so suddenly my head starts to spin, but I ignore it.
"did something happen to the kids?" I ask, panicking.
Alex and Juno look at me, seemingly confused and surprised and then Alex walks out of the room and Juno smiles reassuringly.
"no, dear. The young ones are fine, they're with Artemis," she says, sitting down at the table next to Jove. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down and silencing my doomsday-thoughts.
The kids are fine, that's all I need to know.
Mina walks back into the room, a disappointed look in her eyes that tell me the fake Juno wasn't there anymore.
Damn.
"then why would I be mad?" I ask, now a bit confused again.
"you approached us in the park and said you wanted to take the kids home with you, but I had just promised I'd buy Alex some ice-cream, so I invited you to join us instead. You got angry that I 'had the nerve to think I could make decisions about your kids' and Ares defended me, making you angry with him as well. Eventually Ares suggested you might be a doppelgänger – which I guess he was right about, since from the look in your eyes and your earlier panic about the kids you didn't know any of this had happened – and you lost it. You yelled at him and demanded we let you take the kids home, so I asked Alex if he wanted to go with you, but he said he didn't, so I wouldn't let you take them. Well, actually, Alex just grabbed my shirt and looked up at me with scared eyes when I asked him if he wanted to go with you, so that was answer enough for me. After that you stormed off, saying you'd get both of us back for that. Ares doesn't want you to be angry with him, since keeping the kids with us was my idea," she explains.
I sit back down, my legs too weak to hold me up, and my doomsday-thoughts all come back full-force.
"they tried to take my babies. They tried to take my babies!" I say. "I don't give a shit if they try to take over your lives, or even if they try to ruin mine, but they tried to take my babies!"
"mommy," Alex yells, running over to where I'm sitting and jumping onto my lap.
Artemis and Ares – damn it, now I'm calling them by those names – walk in, Artemis holding Elizabeth, who I suspect is trying to tell me about her trip to the park, from the excited way she's babbling.
"so why was it so important I took the little ones inside right now?" Artemis asks, obviously confused.
"I figured winter-girl would want them close when she heard about what'd happened in the park," Ares says, shrugging.
I smile, hugging Alex close and breathing deeply, trying to calm myself.
"freakin' hell, that scared me," I mumble.
Wouldn't help for Alex to see me panicking now after he just had to witness 'me' yelling and ranting in the park.
"mommy, you're not weird anymore," Alex says happily and I laugh.
"no, I'm not weird anymore," I say, pretty sure I know what he means by 'weird'. "listen, kid. Whenever I'm 'weird' like that, don't be alone with me, alright? Find one of the others or find a police officer and stay with them instead. Promise me."
Alex looks confused, but he still nods.
"I promise," he says.
"how was that weird? You were a bit irascible, but you didn't seem all that different to me. That's why it was Ares and not me who first suggested you might've been a doppelgänger," Hera says – hell, if I'm going to call some of them by their 'real' names, I might as well call all of them by those names.
I laugh.
"do we know for sure everyone here is who they're supposed to be? Because I'm about to reveal something about myself that makes it very easy to expose my doppelgänger," I say.
Everyone starts asking each other weird questions and eventually they all nod.
"gummy bears, really?" I ask Ares and when he just shrugs I laugh again and get back on topic.
"I can't swear in front of children. Not 'I don't swear in front of children', I literally can't," I say quietly, so that any possible doppelgänger in other rooms won't be able to overhear.
"even if I haven't fully, consciously realized that there are children nearby, I'll automatically start using words like 'darn', 'freakin'' or 'chips' instead of the actual words. I can't even tell you 'the actual words' right now, even if I wanted to, because there are kids in the room. I am physically unable to swear in front of children. So when 'I' started yelling in the park, I probably used curse-words, right?" I ask and Hera nods.
"well, since Alex was there to hear me, I wouldn't have – couldn't have – used those words," I say, shrugging. "I don't know why I'm like that, but I am. Some people can't lie, some people automatically get more polite in front of elderly people, even ones they hate, I can't swear in front of children."
"oh," Athena says, looking like she just figured out the answer to a question that had been bothering her for a while.
"in that case, I have met your doppelgänger at least twice before," she says when we all look at her questioningly.
"I was gone most of today because I had some work to do. I met you downtown, you said you were in the mood for something we didn't have in the house, so you'd gone shopping. You said something like 'that place has just about everything a person could ever want to eat, but something as simple as a damn Popsicle is just too much to ask for'. I didn't think much of it at the time, since there are plenty people who like Popsicles, but thinking back now I realize that we were in a rather busy street, with at least four children around that I could see. You wouldn't have used the word 'damn' in that situation," she says.
I sigh.
"could you please not use that word in front of Alex? I realize you're doing it to make a point, but..." I say.
She smiles and nods.
"very well. There was also this other time, a few days ago, when I saw you with this woman I don't know. I figured she was your mother, since you did say you're here with the kids and your mother, even if she didn't come with you to this house. This was before I'd actually met you, so I didn't bother to go talk to you. It was four days ago, I think. From what you've told me that was the day you arrived here, so it wouldn't be too unreasonable for me to have encountered you then. I don't remember Alex and Elizabeth being there. Anyway, there were children there, just not those two. And you seemed to be angry with this woman. You were calling her all kinds of horrible things that are far worse to say in front of children than...well, than those other words," she says. "like I said, I didn't know you at the time, so I didn't pay too much attention to you, but I do remember thinking you probably shouldn't use such language in public, which is why the memory stuck."
"this woman you saw..." I saw, walking out of the room to go up to my bedroom and get my handbag.
"...did she look like this?" I finish asking, as if I wasn't just gone for almost a full minute.
I pull a portrait of my mom with Alex and me out of my wallet and point at my mom.
"oh no, she looked nothing like that," she says. "nothing at all. Is that really your mother? How did you come out of something like that?"
She looks at me with big eyes, obviously impressed, making me laugh.
"someone once told me that the babies of two ugly people are usually gorgeous," Pollo says wisely, winking at me, making me laugh even harder.
"actually, no. I take after my father. He's pretty handsome. He's also the one I got my brains from. He was very smart, which is probably why he decided to get the hell away from my mother while he was still young and pretty enough to find someone better," I say. "but anyway, if we know who the woman was, maybe that'll give us some more insight in the doppelgängers lives. If she was someone with the same 'organization' or whatever they are,..."
"or she could've just been some random passerby that pissed your foul-mouthed doppelgänger off," Athena says, shrugging.
"but I can describe her to Pollo later so he can make a sketch of her. You never know if it might come in handy sometimes. At least, if that woman ever makes another appearance, we'll know to be wary of her. This is your mother?" she asks, her mind obviously stuck on that tidbit of useless information, looking back at the picture with bewilderment in her eyes.
Everyone laughs and I shrug again.
"I'm afraid so. Super-smart I might be, but I've never been able to figure out what my dad ever saw in her. Normally, when you look like that, you need an amazing personality or some crazy cool talents to get a man like my dad, but she doesn't have that either. She's stupid, annoying, crazy religious in all the worst ways – she's the 'red orange shirt' kind of person – and spiteful. Honestly, the only good thing she had going for her was my dad. Everyone loved being around him so much that they endured having to spend time with her to see him. I'm not saying my dad should never have been with her, seeing as Alex and I would never even have been born had he not been with her, but I simply don't understand why he would ever have wanted to be with her, enough to marry her and have two kids with her," I say.
"maybe she did have good looks or a great personality when he met her, but that just deteriorated over the years," Hera suggests.
"maybe, but I don't know...it seems a bit unlikely that someone can go from 'super-amazing and pretty' to 'super-annoying, retarded, freaky religious and ugly' in just a few years. Especially since he would had to have still found her attractive seven years ago – since he must have slept with her then for Alex to be here today – and I was there seven years ago. I remember her being exactly the same back then as she is today. And while they do say that most early childhood-memories are usually fabricated and fake, seven years ago I was already well in my teens – I was fifteen when Alex was born – so I don't think that really counts as 'early childhood-memories'. Actually, I don't remember her being any different from how she is today ever. Not in my teens, not before then, not ever. So whatever it is that attracted my father to her, it wasn't her personality and it wasn't her looks. She's not rich, never has been, so it wasn't money either."
We talk about the possible reasons my dad could've wanted my mother for a few more hours.
Athena suggests my mother is actually pretty smart, but just not as smart as me, so I always just saw her as being stupider, but after telling her some of the stupid things my mother has done over the years, she decides that that woman just really is stupid.
Pollo suggests my father might've had low self-esteem and he thought he simply couldn't get any better, but since I remember my dad to be plenty confident, arrogant even, that idea is also nixed.
Hera says it could've just been love, but that idea is shot down pretty quickly, since I have no memories of my dad ever saying anything ever remotely loving to or about my mother.
Zeus suggests my mother might've had something on my dad and she blackmailed him into marrying her and then he tried to make it work – half because she still had that 'thing' on him and half because of the sanctity of marriage – but failed and eventually decided that whatever she had on him, it getting out couldn't possibly be worse than being married to her.
Eventually we decide that that's as close to the truth as we're going to get.
It does seem like a reasonable explanation why my dad would marry someone so far beneath him and it seems like something my mother would do.
Ha, no disclaimer this time. Take that, paranoia.
