Disclaimers:
We don't own any characters although it would be nice to borrow them sometime.
This is not really a science fiction, so the effects of any future technological advances are minimized - for all we know, Katie could have cloned Jessie.
Rating: A couple of love scenes, but nothing really smutty
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CHAPTER 10: Ideologies
Katie sat on the couch, not really knowing what to think, not really knowing when to move. She sat there in silence, unable to move, mesmerized by this scene before her.
They were in high school when the World Trade Center Towers went down and they were called in from their classrooms into the auditorium to watch the events unfold from New York. She remembered exactly what she was thinking because that was when she decided she needed to do something about this business of terrorism and the Middle East and the ultimate cause of this insanity. And when she realized it was all about MONEY, she decided to major in Economics so she could put all these abstract monstrosities into neat little models that she could manipulate and deal with, if only in paper.
As they filed to take their seats at the high school auditorium, she noticed a blonde sophomore holding Grace's hand like she was some child afraid of getting lost during one of those Christmas shopping days when the rest of humanity congregated in the only place where they were free to express their faith – The Mall.
"Tad, who's Grace babysitting?" Katie whispered as she pointed to Grace and Katie walking towards 2 empty seats a few rows from them.
"That's Jessie, her new stepsister," Tad answered, "She's a cutie, isn't she?"
"Eh…nothing spectacular," Katie said nonchalantly to deflect Tad's attention but they were both staring at Jessie, sobbing like had just lost something really important. Tad thought she was overreacting and Katie thought she was the person she would really want to be friends with. Because at that moment, as the images of the burning buildings appeared before them, Katie also wanted to start sobbing, for she too had lost something important – a big part of her innocence – except that with Tad and Russell on her side, crying was not exactly considered a cool activity.
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And then the phone rang; it was Grace.
"Katie, are you watching the news?" Grace said on the other line. "What time did Jessie's train leave Penn Station?"
"She left on the 5:30," Katie said, still glued to the television.
"Oh my God," Grace exclaimed. "Do you think she's in that train?"
"I don't know, Grace, but there were 2 trains that left Penn at around the same time, both going to Boston," Katie remembered, somehow reassuring herself, somehow allowing herself some hope when hope was never her strongest virtue.
"Well, do you know which train she took?" Grace said more forcefully, apprehension very palpable from her voice.
"The express one," Katie remembered.
"I'll call you back," Grace said hastily before hanging up the phone.
There were 2 trains! Katie remembered as she started pacing her apartment, unable to stand still for a second, waiting for the phone to ring to hear Jessie tell her she's okay. If there is really a God, she thought, He must have a really wicked sense of humor, because this is SO NOT funny.
"I don't know if You're doing this because I reappeared after all these years of not talking to You, but this is a real crappy message You're giving me right now," Katie said angrily to no one in the room, except maybe to Someone who could hear her.
Oh, she was so angry with God, or whoever it was who was in charge.
"Katie, Jessie was in that train. It was THE express train that crashed… It was THE five-thirty…" Grace said, hardly able to catch her breath when she called back half an our later – an eternity, really, in Katie's current dimension.
"I'm going there," Katie said as she scanned the room quickly and made mental notes of what she absolutely needed to bring.
"Be careful, Katie. I'll try to get Eli and my mom right now, you can call Karen from the road," Grace said on the other line.
Katie ran over to the bathroom to take her contact lenses out; it was going to be a long night and she did not want the extra burden of her oxygen-deprived eyes. As she hastily brushed her teeth and washed her face, she looked up at the mirror and imagined Jessie standing right next to her just that morning, wrapped in her sheets, laughing and tickling her. Her bathroom still smelled of Jessie – what kind of shampoo was that again, Katie thought, her mind going in a thousand different directions, unable to focus to the task at hand. And then there was another image of Jessie – a 14 year old Jessie, dressed in the stupid costume that Sarah had sabotaged for her as she looked helplessly at Katie…
"JESSIE!" she cried out loud as if to remind herself of the urgent task at hand. She looked at her watch; it was almost 10:00.
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AMTRAK TRAIN
Earlier That Evening
Jessie was looking out the window, a smile permanently tattooed on her face, as trees and houses appear and disappear before her. There was really nothing on her mind, not one solitary, consciously conjured thought. Just images streaming before her like some sort of ticker tape, yet they were not linear but circular, jumping from one scene to another in no particular order.
"Billie," Katie said softly, her voice bringing Jessie out of her
reflections. "I think I've gone stupid," she continued, not sounding
terribly concerned about it, as she felt Jessie shift to look up at
her.
"What're you talking about?" Jessie asked looking over at Katie as
she blinked up at the ceiling.
"I can't," Katie started. "My mind just won't …work. It's like when
I broke my arm and the doctor put me on morphine only he gave me too
much. I feel like that, only better. And…more tingly," she
continued, highly and pleasantly aware of the feel of Jessie's bare
skin pressed against the side of her body and the excited feeling it
caused inside of her.
"Are you saying I'm like a drug?" Jessie asked leaning over and
pressing a chaste kiss to Katie's cheek, completely in awe of Katie's
reaction to what they had just shared.
"No," Katie breathed out softly, looking up into Jessie's
eyes. "Drugs should like be totally jealous of you. There's some
Colombian cocaine dealer huddled in the corner of a bathroom crying its
eyes out right now," she continued, her eyes closing as a smile
spread across her face.
(Authors' note: Thanks, Janine)
Jessie smiled at these scenes, scenes she had played many times before in her head like a worn-out video that toddlers watched repeatedly to somehow secure the safety of their toddler universe. She did not know how long she stayed in this revelry; she did not really care.
She did not really consciously WAIT for Katie to come back to her life, she did not believe in this fairy tale stuff. She just resolved to live her life the way it was meant to be, and if that happened to never include Katie again, that was okay too. For the longest time, she thought Katie was just another chapter – like one of those chapters that you kept reading over and over marking every line with pink highlighters until the pages were all pink – but just another chapter nevertheless. And as life laid out the rest of the yellow brick road before her, she realized that the "past" that was Katie was not really the past, but an ideology that she treasured and carried with her as she walked towards the Emerald City. It was really hard to explain and unless you had really loved another person with all your might and with every molecule in your body and every fiber of your being, you wouldn't know what it's about.
It was not so much as holding on to the past because God knows she had LIVED her life all these years. She had gladly accepted every card she was dealt with, she was not really moping and clinging to something that's already gone; rather she had transcended the past into something ALIVE and REAL. Maybe that's where all other ideologies come from – this desire to extract the goodness from the unexplainable so you would always remember that despite the uncharted waters before you, you have the map that would always lead to the safety of the other side.
Jessie smiled. She had reached the safety of the other side. Let tomorrow take care of itself, for today, nothing else really mattered.
And then there was the explosion and everything went black. Jessie did not know what had happened, only that she felt something warm trickling out of her forehead and the smell of burning metal and flesh spreading uncontrollably around her. Jessie closed her eyes… she was still smiling… if this was the end of her days, it would be just fine, she thought. For really, she had reached the safety of the other side. At that very moment, she knew what happiness and love was all about, and really, what else was there to find out? And as she slipped into oblivion, the last thing on her mind was Katie's face, staring at her, silently explaining her to herself…
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