Disclaimer: I do not own Early Edition, or any of its characters. I just like to torture them. Please do not sue.
Authoress's Note: This fic, and the ones my brain is telling me to write to
follow it up, do NOT have a lot of action. They deal mainly with Gary's
personal life aside from the paper. (I got sick of him never having a happy
ending on T.V., so I decided to get up off my rear and do something about
it.) However, they are so closely intertwined you cannot completely isolate
one from the other, so there will be some action scenes.
Thoughts are inside ~marks like these~, words supposed to be in
italics are inside *marks like these*.
Gary plopped down on his couch. He looked at the bustling streets
of the city before him, his beloved Chicago.
~It must be because I love this city so much that I ended up with this paper~ he thought.
Tomorrow's newspaper today took its toll on a body, that was
abundantly clear. He had just stopped a ten-year-old skateboarder from
falling in the sewer and drowning, and since he had almost been too late he
was physically exhausted.
He began to reflect just how he had come to love the city, how he
had come there, what had happened to him to make him *him*.
*flashback...*
Gary remembered little of his early years, they had been so...typical.
Growing up in Hickory, Illinois was like growing up fifteen or twenty years earlier than the rest of the world. It was only 150 miles to Chicago, but he never even saw it until he was eleven.
His doting mother had helped him write an essay. Actually *she* had
written it, but Gary's teachers never knew. It won a contest, and the prize
was Gary got to go to Chicago and read it in a larger contest, which if he
won he would get to go Washington DC.
He really didn't want to do it...he'd suggested that his mother go to Chicago and read it, but she would not tolerate that.
Many things happened to him that day, but the one that now had the
most significance to him was the tour of the Chicago Sun-Times building.
He had met an elderly (at least he was elderly to Gary, he might have been closer to fifty) typesetter by the name of Lucius Snow. Something
had "clicked" between them, and they had several more encounters that day, including Snow pulling Gary from in front of a truck and thereby saving
his life.
*the present...*
It took Gary several years of getting the paper before that day was
called to his attention, but he had discovered Snow had chosen him for the
job. That the paper was passed on from generation to generation. He had, in
fact, chosen his successor, a young girl who lived in Chicago, but he hoped
he had many years left of getting the paper before the baton was passed
again.
Yes, when it came right down to it he *liked* saving people's lives
and even if he had a choice he wouldn't have had it any other way--no
matter how much he complained.
Suddenly, the Cat jumped up on the back of the couch and began
rubbing against his neck. "Meow." Gary reached around and put the Cat in his
lap.
The Cat came with the paper, and remained nameless. He had
belonged to Snow, and others before, and undoubtedly was quite old.
Gary knew that he could never name a creature as fine as the Cat, so he was
called "Cat" and referred to as "the Cat". Gary had wondered several times if Snow or any of his predecessors *had* ever named him, and if so, what
name they'd chosen, but he never really let it get to him.
The Cat settled in his lap and began to purr as Gary rubbed his neck
with one hand and leafed through the paper with the other.
Finally he spotted a headline worth paying attention to. He read it
aloud. "Girl Falls from Fire Escape, Fatal...At 6:47 p.m. yesterday Carla Sanders was pronounced dead on arrival at Chicago Community General Hospital. She had fallen six stories from a fire escape on the west side of her home at 4th and Colridge. The lone witness, her boyfriend, Jacob Godfry, said that he had come to get her for a date, and when he yelled up to her through the side window she came out on the fire escape and said she would come down momentarily. The fire escape collapsed and although she managed to
grab onto a ladder on her way down, it also gave way and fell, landing on
top of her. An autopsy was performed and it was concluded that she landed on her head, cracking her skull and causing massive brain damage. It
was ruled she died almost instantly."
Gary checked his watch. 5:51. "Gotta go, Cat." He quickly stood and
left the apartment. The Cat growled a bit at being dumped onto the floor like that, but Gary knew he had a short memory about such things.
Gary could hear the kid from a block away.
"Carla! Oh CARRRRRR-LAAAA!"
Gary ran a little faster. He ducked into the alleyway just in time to see a girl--Carla--step onto the fire escape and look down at her boyfriend on the ground.
"Jakie, hang on just a moment, 'kay?"
Gary shouted up to her. "Hey, get inside!"
She frowned. "And who do you think you are, mister?" she yelled.
"I'm a fire escape inspector and I happen to know that this one needs replacing! It's gonna fall!"
"Show me some ID, man," "Jakie" demanded.
Just them the metal groaned and gave way. Carla screamed. "Help me!"
she cried, grasping for anything, and catching hold of the ladder just below
her floor.
Gary quickly spotted an extension ladder leaning against the other
side of the alley and got under it, giving it a shove so it would lean against the other wall. He clambered up it as quickly as he could manage and
grabbed Carla around her waist nanoseconds before the ladder she was on crashed to the ground below.
"Oh...wow...thank you so much, Mister! But how did you know?"
"Nevermind how I know, but I believe you have a date with Jakie." He
helped her onto the ladder in front of him and climbed down first to hold
the ladder for her.
The second her feet touched the ground she was wrapped in Jakie's
arms and Gary just backed off. He still remembered what it was like to be
seventeen, and he knew that adult interference in romantic moments was
not appreciated.
He remembered his first real girlfriend, and how he had felt about
her...
*flashback...*
The day was etched into his memory so clearly. Or at least the
important stuff was. It had started off routine, but at the end of the school day a friend--Gary had long forgotten who--had told him that he had a
friend in Chicago, and that night they were each going to bring a bunch of
friends to an abandoned lot there in Hickory and throw a huge party, and of
course Gary was invited.
He cleared it with his parents and went with a group of friends,
figuring that there was not much else to do on a Thursday night in Hickory.
It was just before sunset when two carloads of Chicagoan teenagers
pulled into the lot, but even though there were ten of them Gary only
noticed one.
He got his friend to introduce him to the girl. Sora Marley was
seventeen, with long Irish-red hair and dazzling sky blue eyes.
They talked to no one but one another, and as it got late Gary
offered to drive her home, since she didn't want to stick around waiting for
the couples to finish their "activities".
They walked to his house and explained to his parents. Gary drove her home. Before she got out of the car, they did share one goodnight kiss, and the next thing Gary knew he had a girlfriend that he loved very much. The 150 miles to Chicago seemed to shrink to nearly nothing.
They dated through the remainder of the school year and the summer.
Gary graduated, and she prepared for her senior year.
That September, he had left to go to college in New York, leaving her with a kiss good-bye and a promise to write ASAP.
As it happened, he lost her address, and she didn't have his, so even though she still loved him, he assumed they had grown apart. By the time Sora joined him at the college, he was engaged to be married.
He didn't realize at the time the pain she felt. He did know, however, that his bride, Marcia, and Sora did not get along. When he and Marcia finished college, they settled in Chicago, along with Gary's friend Chuck Fischman--a very odd, money-motivated but lovable guy.
Sora returned to Chicago, her hometown, on her own. Her father had
moved to his wife's hometown upon Sora's departure for college. Gary kept
in touch with her, but he rarely saw her due to Marcia.
*the present...*
By this time Gary had reached McGinty's, the restaurant he co-owned
with Marissa Clark. He had met Marissa not too long before his marriage
soured and he started getting the paper.
*flashback...*
Right after college, Marcia had started as a lawyer and Gary as a
stockbroker. Chuck was also a stockbroker, they worked at the same
company at that time. That had been how they had met, in fact--they'd
been in several classes together.
At the stock company, everyone knew Marissa--the blind
receptionist. She got to know Gary and Chuck particularly well, the three of
them and Marcia were pretty much always together.
The night of Gary and Marcia's fifth anniversary, he came home with a dozen roses only to have a suitcase thrown at him from the second story
bedroom.
Gary checked into a hotel, and spent several days trying to contact
Marcia but with no luck.
One morning the paper had arrived. It caused quite a stir with Chuck
and Marissa, but it didn't take too long to realize that it came every day.
The same day the first paper came, Gary was served divorce papers.
He'd hurt, but he decided that the best thing to do was just to move
on. Marissa and Chuck were there for him. Sora began to creep back into his
life after all those six years. He was grateful for the friendship.
He lived in the hotel several months before a fire burned him out. The Cat found him a place--McGinty's, the restaurant where he, Chuck and
Marissa hung out, was going out of business. Chuck cashed in his stocks and
bought it, and co-ran it with Gary. Gary lived in the apartment upstairs.
After a while, Chuck decided to follow some big dreams--he wanted
to become a TV producer. He left for Los Angeles and his part of McGinty's
went to Marissa, who had been a big help ever since the beginning.
Chuck came back to visit occasionally, after he made it somewhere with the T.V. thing. Although now, when he came he had an actress wife who came along.
*the present...*
Gary walked into the office to find Marissa. "Anything happen while I was gone?"
"Not anything as exciting as whatever you were doing," Marissa said.
"Nope, nothing."
Gary grinned a little. This place made him happy--he was content
here.
"So what were you doing?" Marissa asked.
"Uhh...teenage girl, falling fire escape."
"Ah." Marissa took a sip of her coffee, "Want some?" she asked.
"No thanks." Gary again began to riffle through the pages of the paper. He sighed, somewhat relieved. "I'm done for the day--there's nothing else here." He sat in the chair opposite Marissa, on the other side of the desk.
"Good. You can relax. It's not often you get to do that, you know."
"Yeah, I know."
"Seems especially true since Erica left," Marissa informed him.
"Oh really? I hadn't noticed."
Marissa sighed. "I know you liked her, Gary, but even you know that if she wasn't happy it never would have worked."
"I know, Marissa, but that doesn't help me any. I'm going upstairs."
*flashback...*
It had been several months that Erica had worked at McGinty's, but
somehow it seemed so much shorter than that to Gary.
She'd come from New York City, fresh from a divorce--with her son
Henry in tow. Gary had given her a job and had a crush on her for quite a
while. He kept having to break dates, though, because the paper interfered.
Just as she was about to give up on ever having a date with him, he told her
about the paper. At first she hadn't believed him, but when she witnessed a
rescue and a page of the paper Gary had dropped changed practically right
before her eyes, they finally started to get rolling.
However, things kept getting in the way. They were not sure where
they were going in the relationship, and Erica deemed it best to just pick up and leave. She and Henry returned to New York.
Gary had tried to chase after them, he really had, but he missed their train. He'd returned to McGinty's only to find a note saying they'd left two hours earlier than she'd planned anyway.
That hurt him--but not as much as had Marcia. He'd hardly spent any
real time with Erica. He'd concluded that what had hurt him so much was
that she was not willing to at least try to work things out.
*the present...*
~Love never seems to go my way~, he reflected. Oh, there were the
five happy--well, okay, perhaps only the first four-and-a half-were
*happy*--years with Marcia, but that had ended bitterly, too. ~Isn't there
anyone out there for me?~
The phone rang, and it was probably a good thing--it saved him the
trouble of a pity party. He answered it. "Hello?"
"Hey, Gary, how goes the paper?"
He smiled a bit at Sora's voice. She really was a good friend. "Fine, fine," he told her. "As a matter of fact, I got everything taken care of. There's nothing left tonight."
"Really? Hey, I'm free tonight, too...you wanna get with Marissa and
get a pizza?"
"Sounds great...I haven't had a night for myself in *ages*."
"Cool! Meetcha at McGinty's in half an hour?"
"Sure. See ya then."
Okay, people, you have just had the pleasure of reading my very first fanfic...at least I HOPE it was a pleasure for you. *cringes in fear* PLEASE review so I can at least find out if I can write a decent fic. Tell me if you want more, because I certainly already have more in mind.
I know this has practically no action compared to most fics, but this isn't an action story. The way I figure it, you can't get too far on two characters (Gary and Marissa), so I'm going to be cluttering up my whole
plotline with at *least* one more main character and at *least* four more
peripheral characters. This story was to lay the groundwork, establish the
statuses of my characters.
I know there is an episode in which Gary sees his high-school
sweetheart get married, but by the time I got to see it, this fic was already in its planning stages, so this fic, and all the ones that may come after it, are written in total oblivion of that ONE ep. Other than that, I try to stick with what I know of the main storyline. Any corrections should be sent to RenaissanceGrrl@excite.com.
Authoress's Note: This fic, and the ones my brain is telling me to write to
follow it up, do NOT have a lot of action. They deal mainly with Gary's
personal life aside from the paper. (I got sick of him never having a happy
ending on T.V., so I decided to get up off my rear and do something about
it.) However, they are so closely intertwined you cannot completely isolate
one from the other, so there will be some action scenes.
Thoughts are inside ~marks like these~, words supposed to be in
italics are inside *marks like these*.
Gary plopped down on his couch. He looked at the bustling streets
of the city before him, his beloved Chicago.
~It must be because I love this city so much that I ended up with this paper~ he thought.
Tomorrow's newspaper today took its toll on a body, that was
abundantly clear. He had just stopped a ten-year-old skateboarder from
falling in the sewer and drowning, and since he had almost been too late he
was physically exhausted.
He began to reflect just how he had come to love the city, how he
had come there, what had happened to him to make him *him*.
*flashback...*
Gary remembered little of his early years, they had been so...typical.
Growing up in Hickory, Illinois was like growing up fifteen or twenty years earlier than the rest of the world. It was only 150 miles to Chicago, but he never even saw it until he was eleven.
His doting mother had helped him write an essay. Actually *she* had
written it, but Gary's teachers never knew. It won a contest, and the prize
was Gary got to go to Chicago and read it in a larger contest, which if he
won he would get to go Washington DC.
He really didn't want to do it...he'd suggested that his mother go to Chicago and read it, but she would not tolerate that.
Many things happened to him that day, but the one that now had the
most significance to him was the tour of the Chicago Sun-Times building.
He had met an elderly (at least he was elderly to Gary, he might have been closer to fifty) typesetter by the name of Lucius Snow. Something
had "clicked" between them, and they had several more encounters that day, including Snow pulling Gary from in front of a truck and thereby saving
his life.
*the present...*
It took Gary several years of getting the paper before that day was
called to his attention, but he had discovered Snow had chosen him for the
job. That the paper was passed on from generation to generation. He had, in
fact, chosen his successor, a young girl who lived in Chicago, but he hoped
he had many years left of getting the paper before the baton was passed
again.
Yes, when it came right down to it he *liked* saving people's lives
and even if he had a choice he wouldn't have had it any other way--no
matter how much he complained.
Suddenly, the Cat jumped up on the back of the couch and began
rubbing against his neck. "Meow." Gary reached around and put the Cat in his
lap.
The Cat came with the paper, and remained nameless. He had
belonged to Snow, and others before, and undoubtedly was quite old.
Gary knew that he could never name a creature as fine as the Cat, so he was
called "Cat" and referred to as "the Cat". Gary had wondered several times if Snow or any of his predecessors *had* ever named him, and if so, what
name they'd chosen, but he never really let it get to him.
The Cat settled in his lap and began to purr as Gary rubbed his neck
with one hand and leafed through the paper with the other.
Finally he spotted a headline worth paying attention to. He read it
aloud. "Girl Falls from Fire Escape, Fatal...At 6:47 p.m. yesterday Carla Sanders was pronounced dead on arrival at Chicago Community General Hospital. She had fallen six stories from a fire escape on the west side of her home at 4th and Colridge. The lone witness, her boyfriend, Jacob Godfry, said that he had come to get her for a date, and when he yelled up to her through the side window she came out on the fire escape and said she would come down momentarily. The fire escape collapsed and although she managed to
grab onto a ladder on her way down, it also gave way and fell, landing on
top of her. An autopsy was performed and it was concluded that she landed on her head, cracking her skull and causing massive brain damage. It
was ruled she died almost instantly."
Gary checked his watch. 5:51. "Gotta go, Cat." He quickly stood and
left the apartment. The Cat growled a bit at being dumped onto the floor like that, but Gary knew he had a short memory about such things.
Gary could hear the kid from a block away.
"Carla! Oh CARRRRRR-LAAAA!"
Gary ran a little faster. He ducked into the alleyway just in time to see a girl--Carla--step onto the fire escape and look down at her boyfriend on the ground.
"Jakie, hang on just a moment, 'kay?"
Gary shouted up to her. "Hey, get inside!"
She frowned. "And who do you think you are, mister?" she yelled.
"I'm a fire escape inspector and I happen to know that this one needs replacing! It's gonna fall!"
"Show me some ID, man," "Jakie" demanded.
Just them the metal groaned and gave way. Carla screamed. "Help me!"
she cried, grasping for anything, and catching hold of the ladder just below
her floor.
Gary quickly spotted an extension ladder leaning against the other
side of the alley and got under it, giving it a shove so it would lean against the other wall. He clambered up it as quickly as he could manage and
grabbed Carla around her waist nanoseconds before the ladder she was on crashed to the ground below.
"Oh...wow...thank you so much, Mister! But how did you know?"
"Nevermind how I know, but I believe you have a date with Jakie." He
helped her onto the ladder in front of him and climbed down first to hold
the ladder for her.
The second her feet touched the ground she was wrapped in Jakie's
arms and Gary just backed off. He still remembered what it was like to be
seventeen, and he knew that adult interference in romantic moments was
not appreciated.
He remembered his first real girlfriend, and how he had felt about
her...
*flashback...*
The day was etched into his memory so clearly. Or at least the
important stuff was. It had started off routine, but at the end of the school day a friend--Gary had long forgotten who--had told him that he had a
friend in Chicago, and that night they were each going to bring a bunch of
friends to an abandoned lot there in Hickory and throw a huge party, and of
course Gary was invited.
He cleared it with his parents and went with a group of friends,
figuring that there was not much else to do on a Thursday night in Hickory.
It was just before sunset when two carloads of Chicagoan teenagers
pulled into the lot, but even though there were ten of them Gary only
noticed one.
He got his friend to introduce him to the girl. Sora Marley was
seventeen, with long Irish-red hair and dazzling sky blue eyes.
They talked to no one but one another, and as it got late Gary
offered to drive her home, since she didn't want to stick around waiting for
the couples to finish their "activities".
They walked to his house and explained to his parents. Gary drove her home. Before she got out of the car, they did share one goodnight kiss, and the next thing Gary knew he had a girlfriend that he loved very much. The 150 miles to Chicago seemed to shrink to nearly nothing.
They dated through the remainder of the school year and the summer.
Gary graduated, and she prepared for her senior year.
That September, he had left to go to college in New York, leaving her with a kiss good-bye and a promise to write ASAP.
As it happened, he lost her address, and she didn't have his, so even though she still loved him, he assumed they had grown apart. By the time Sora joined him at the college, he was engaged to be married.
He didn't realize at the time the pain she felt. He did know, however, that his bride, Marcia, and Sora did not get along. When he and Marcia finished college, they settled in Chicago, along with Gary's friend Chuck Fischman--a very odd, money-motivated but lovable guy.
Sora returned to Chicago, her hometown, on her own. Her father had
moved to his wife's hometown upon Sora's departure for college. Gary kept
in touch with her, but he rarely saw her due to Marcia.
*the present...*
By this time Gary had reached McGinty's, the restaurant he co-owned
with Marissa Clark. He had met Marissa not too long before his marriage
soured and he started getting the paper.
*flashback...*
Right after college, Marcia had started as a lawyer and Gary as a
stockbroker. Chuck was also a stockbroker, they worked at the same
company at that time. That had been how they had met, in fact--they'd
been in several classes together.
At the stock company, everyone knew Marissa--the blind
receptionist. She got to know Gary and Chuck particularly well, the three of
them and Marcia were pretty much always together.
The night of Gary and Marcia's fifth anniversary, he came home with a dozen roses only to have a suitcase thrown at him from the second story
bedroom.
Gary checked into a hotel, and spent several days trying to contact
Marcia but with no luck.
One morning the paper had arrived. It caused quite a stir with Chuck
and Marissa, but it didn't take too long to realize that it came every day.
The same day the first paper came, Gary was served divorce papers.
He'd hurt, but he decided that the best thing to do was just to move
on. Marissa and Chuck were there for him. Sora began to creep back into his
life after all those six years. He was grateful for the friendship.
He lived in the hotel several months before a fire burned him out. The Cat found him a place--McGinty's, the restaurant where he, Chuck and
Marissa hung out, was going out of business. Chuck cashed in his stocks and
bought it, and co-ran it with Gary. Gary lived in the apartment upstairs.
After a while, Chuck decided to follow some big dreams--he wanted
to become a TV producer. He left for Los Angeles and his part of McGinty's
went to Marissa, who had been a big help ever since the beginning.
Chuck came back to visit occasionally, after he made it somewhere with the T.V. thing. Although now, when he came he had an actress wife who came along.
*the present...*
Gary walked into the office to find Marissa. "Anything happen while I was gone?"
"Not anything as exciting as whatever you were doing," Marissa said.
"Nope, nothing."
Gary grinned a little. This place made him happy--he was content
here.
"So what were you doing?" Marissa asked.
"Uhh...teenage girl, falling fire escape."
"Ah." Marissa took a sip of her coffee, "Want some?" she asked.
"No thanks." Gary again began to riffle through the pages of the paper. He sighed, somewhat relieved. "I'm done for the day--there's nothing else here." He sat in the chair opposite Marissa, on the other side of the desk.
"Good. You can relax. It's not often you get to do that, you know."
"Yeah, I know."
"Seems especially true since Erica left," Marissa informed him.
"Oh really? I hadn't noticed."
Marissa sighed. "I know you liked her, Gary, but even you know that if she wasn't happy it never would have worked."
"I know, Marissa, but that doesn't help me any. I'm going upstairs."
*flashback...*
It had been several months that Erica had worked at McGinty's, but
somehow it seemed so much shorter than that to Gary.
She'd come from New York City, fresh from a divorce--with her son
Henry in tow. Gary had given her a job and had a crush on her for quite a
while. He kept having to break dates, though, because the paper interfered.
Just as she was about to give up on ever having a date with him, he told her
about the paper. At first she hadn't believed him, but when she witnessed a
rescue and a page of the paper Gary had dropped changed practically right
before her eyes, they finally started to get rolling.
However, things kept getting in the way. They were not sure where
they were going in the relationship, and Erica deemed it best to just pick up and leave. She and Henry returned to New York.
Gary had tried to chase after them, he really had, but he missed their train. He'd returned to McGinty's only to find a note saying they'd left two hours earlier than she'd planned anyway.
That hurt him--but not as much as had Marcia. He'd hardly spent any
real time with Erica. He'd concluded that what had hurt him so much was
that she was not willing to at least try to work things out.
*the present...*
~Love never seems to go my way~, he reflected. Oh, there were the
five happy--well, okay, perhaps only the first four-and-a half-were
*happy*--years with Marcia, but that had ended bitterly, too. ~Isn't there
anyone out there for me?~
The phone rang, and it was probably a good thing--it saved him the
trouble of a pity party. He answered it. "Hello?"
"Hey, Gary, how goes the paper?"
He smiled a bit at Sora's voice. She really was a good friend. "Fine, fine," he told her. "As a matter of fact, I got everything taken care of. There's nothing left tonight."
"Really? Hey, I'm free tonight, too...you wanna get with Marissa and
get a pizza?"
"Sounds great...I haven't had a night for myself in *ages*."
"Cool! Meetcha at McGinty's in half an hour?"
"Sure. See ya then."
Okay, people, you have just had the pleasure of reading my very first fanfic...at least I HOPE it was a pleasure for you. *cringes in fear* PLEASE review so I can at least find out if I can write a decent fic. Tell me if you want more, because I certainly already have more in mind.
I know this has practically no action compared to most fics, but this isn't an action story. The way I figure it, you can't get too far on two characters (Gary and Marissa), so I'm going to be cluttering up my whole
plotline with at *least* one more main character and at *least* four more
peripheral characters. This story was to lay the groundwork, establish the
statuses of my characters.
I know there is an episode in which Gary sees his high-school
sweetheart get married, but by the time I got to see it, this fic was already in its planning stages, so this fic, and all the ones that may come after it, are written in total oblivion of that ONE ep. Other than that, I try to stick with what I know of the main storyline. Any corrections should be sent to RenaissanceGrrl@excite.com.