"He kissed you?!"

"On the lips!"

Lori couldn't conceal her laughter, "Congratulations, you two are perfect for each other."  She laughed even harder at Merton's scowl, "Well at least he didn't use tongue.  He didn't, did he?"

"No!  But that's not the point.  A future Tommy has taken over Tommy's body and he says I'm going to die!"

"Are you even sure it was a future Tommy?"

"It's the only logical explanation," Merton paused, "actually it's not logical at all, but the only logical explanation is that Tommy's gone completely insane, so I'm going to stick to the future Tommy explanation.  This must be similar to what happened to him last night too, but with a past version."

Lori stopped had laughing by now and was sitting thoughtfully on the floor leaning against a wall with her arms hugging her knees, "So there's a future Tommy somewhere out there kissing people?"

Merton nodded, "Can we stop with the talk about kissing?  Tommy is not going to be happy about that when he's back to normal, everyone was staring at him!  He's out there somewhere though, I suppose we should find him."

Lori nodded and got to her feet, they made their was to the hearse and Merton speeded away as fast as he could towards Tommy's house just as the bell rang for the end of lunch.  "How was the kiss?" Lori asked, Merton scowled at her again.

A search of Tommy's house proved fruitless, as soon as the commercials came on Dean told them he hadn't seen his brother since he left for school that morning.  Checking the rest of the house in case Tommy had managed to sneak in without Dean noticing revealed nothing.  "He said he was going to see his family, not his room," said Merton as they climbed dejectedly back into the hearse and drove away, "and since he hasn't gone to see Dean, than must mean his mom and dad."

"So we should go find them?" asked Lori dubiously, "If he has gone to find one of them they'll think it's weird enough him turning up, if we arrive too they'll think we've all gone mad."

"True, and it might look even stranger if we turned up and he wasn't there."

"Okay, so what do we do, go back to school and act like nothing's wrong?"

Merton thought for a second, "We could," he said eventually, "I was looking forward to today's science class, but something tells me future Tommy's more likely to look for us at the lair, he's not exactly going to be thrilled at the idea of doing all his classes again years after he graduated."

"Lets do that then." Said Lori an agreement and Merton turned around and headed home.

Unfortunately things didn't go exactly to plan.  Merton hadn't reckoned on Tommy not showing up almost straight away, as it happened he and Lori found themselves sitting waiting for almost two hours, not wanting to leave and look for the elusive werewolf because there was always a chance he would turn up at the lair while they were away.

"Hey guys, what's up?"  Merton and Lori looked up simultaneously as they heard the door open and Tommy walk in.  "Anyone want to go the Hungry Bucket?  The weirdest thing happened today, I was in the cafeteria just about to eat my lunch, then the next thing I know it's two hours later and I'm walking into my house.  I don't know what happened but I don't think I ate anything, I'm starving."  As if to prove a point, his stomach rumbled loudly.

"I think he's back to normal again," Merton whispered to Lori.

"What do you mean?" Tommy asked.  Lori bit her lip to stop herself from laughing again.

Merton stared at his friend, "Tommy, your body was possessed by a future version of yourself from a time where I'm dead!"

"What?"

"Like the past version of you last night," Lori explained, "I didn't see him, but apparently he was pretty…pleased to see Merton."

Tommy's eyes narrowed in suspicion at the look of amusement on Lori's face, "Well I'd be pleased to see him too if he'd died and I went back in time."

"Well I'm flattered, of course, but what I think Lori is trying to tell you is that you should prepare for some public humiliation tomorrow, considering you dropped chicken all over the floor and kissed me." Interrupted Merton

"Kissed you?!"

"Twice," said Merton apologetically, "I didn't have any way of stopping you…him."

Tommy blushed, "I'm really sorry about that man," he said.

Merton shrugged it off, shaking his head, "No problem, but you might want to consider kissing a girl or two before the rumours get out of control."

"Wait a minute, he said you were dead?!"  All worry about embarrassment and vicious rumours were pushed to the back of Tommy's mind as the other, much more important, thing his friends were telling him finally sunk in.

"Finally someone cares!  Everyone's been so hung up on this kiss thing that they keep forgetting about my impending demise!"  Merton practically leapt up from his chair staring pleadingly at Tommy, "You have to help me!  I don't want to die!"

"Relax Merton, I'm not gonna let you die.  We know about it now, we'll be able to stop it from happening."

Merton frowned at the taller boy and sat back down, "Not necessarily," he said glumly, "From future Tommy's point of view it has already happened, it's the past to him.  Just because its in our future doesn't mean it's preventable."

"Merton, that doesn't make any sense," Lori told him, "If it hasn't happened, we can make sure it doesn't happen.  How did future Tommy say you die?"

"He didn't tell me, he just said 'there's time', he seemed fairly adamant that he could save me, but I'm not so sure.  We know I'm not a part of Tommy's future, his cyborg told us so.  This might be why."

Tommy shook his head, "No way, you're not gonna make me believe there's nothing we can do.  Besides, how do we even know it was really a future version of me?  None of this death stuff could be true."

"Well, I decided I'd rather believe future and past versions of you are taking over your body for some thus far undisclosed reason than believe you're suffering from some bizarre form of multiple personality disorder.  If you want you can just go ahead and believe you're insane, but I'm going to stick with my theory for now."  He shrugged for effect and quietly wondered whether he had chosen to believe the right theory, especially if future Tommy really was from the future it didn't bode well for his life expectancy.

Tommy took a minute to consider his options, "Okay, so it was definitely a future version of me." He decided eventually, "So, did he give you any clues about when it's supposed to happen."

"Not really," Merton was resting his head on one of his hands and using the fingers on his other hand to tap on his desk, "He did say it happened about four years ago, but that doesn't help much because I don't know how far in the future he was from.  He also said that he fought as hard as he could, that sounds like some evil thing got me and you couldn't stop it.  Also not really helpful, but it's better than nothing."

"Well if he said there's time, that means you'll be alright for now, doesn't it?" asked Lori, "So maybe we should stop worrying about it and carry on as normal.  If future Tommy comes back we'll ask him."

Merton frowned, "I can't help wondering whether 'there's time' meant 'I've still got a few hours' or 'I'm good for ten more years', but I see your point.  I can't let knowing the future get in the way of enjoying the present, everyone dies and I'm lucky because I might have a chance to be saved.  If you two want to go home I'll understand, if you need me later I'll be here, cowering under the bed."

Tommy clasped a hand onto his best friend's shoulder, "We're not going to leave you here on your own Merton, not after what's happened today.  We'll stay here and if anything happens we'll be ready for it, right Lori?"

"Sure, it's not like I had any plans for tonight anyway."

 "Thanks guys!" Said Merton over-enthusiastically with a large grin. He had expected them to stay anyway, but even after almost a year it still sometimes surprised him that he had friends who would choose to hang out with him rather than do something more interesting.

"So, shall we watch a video or something or do you want us to just stand guard?" asked Tommy after a moment, snapping Merton out of his daydream.

"Um, sure.  Whatever you want." He said.  They chose to watch one of Merton's DVDs and Merton sat happily in-between his two friends while to one side of him, Tommy quietly worried that Merton's other theory was the right one and he really was going crazy.


Thanks again for the reviews, I love to know that someone out there is actually reading what I write, how about some more? I'll keep writing even if I don't get any, but I really want to know what you think.