Chapter 8: Alternate Reality?
"Jean?"
Jean sat up on the bed where she was reading, to see Betsy in the doorway. "Yeah?"
"Can we talk a minute?"
"Sure." She sat up, closed her book, and made room beside her on the bed for Betsy. "What's on your mind?"
"Well…I know it's the end of school and all, but Bobby's pranking around has gotten a little out of hand the last week or so. I was wondering if you might consider helping me turn the tables on him…"
* * *
Bobby stretched in bed, yawning. He flung his arms out, wide, and felt another warm body in the bed next to him.
His eyes flew open in shock, and he yelped in surprise, grabbing at the sheet to cover his nakedness as he scrambled out of bed. The body beside his made a grumbling sound, rolled over, and opened its eyes.
Betsy!
He stared. "What are you doing in my bed?!" he howled in shock.
She sat up. "Bobby, what's wrong? Why shouldn't I be here? We're married, after all; it's not like I'm a total stranger." The sheet fell down, past her chest, and Bobby saw…
He turned his eyes away quickly, trying not to stare at Betsy's well-endowed chest, and searched quickly for something—anything--else to occupy his attention.
Bobby stared around the room. It was larger than his room at the institute, and filled with two dressers, two closets, a pile of women's shoes in the corner beside a pile of what he assumed was his shoes, and the bed was made with a beige comforter patterned with…of all things…flowers! Yech!
"This…this is all wrong…" he gestured helplessly at the room, the bed, and everything else around him. "I went to sleep last night in my room, on my bed, in the mansion. And now…this morning…this is wrong, Betsy! You're Warren's girl, not mine, and--"
Bobby's voice trailed off as he caught sight of himself in the mirror over the dresser. His hair was going gray at the temples, and there were more lines on his face than there had been when he was twenty. He was now…what, almost forty? He turned away from the mirror in disbelief. "What is going on?"
"What is going on is that you're going to be late for work if you continue to sit here talking," Betsy said, getting out of bed…and she did sleep nude, and Bobby was hard-put not to stare at her body as she glided into the bathroom. "Will you go and wake our daughters up before she's late for school?"
"Uh…" Bobby froze. "Our daughters?"
Betsy poked her head out of the bathroom. "Yes. Our daughters. What, you're going to tell me you've forgotten about them too?" She sighed. "Are you alright? Maybe I should call Warren and tell him you're sick, and you can't go to work today?"
"W-Warren?"
Betsy came out of the bathroom, still nude, and placed a hand on his forehead. "Hmmm. You don't feel warm, but something's obviously wrong or you wouldn't be acting like this. I'll go call Warren." She turned away from him, going to the telephone beside the bed, and dialed a number. "Hello," she said when someone answered. "Yes, Marie, it's me, Elizabeth. Robert's sick, he won't be able to make it into work today. Would you tell Warren, please?" A pause. "No, I don't think he'll be going to the weekly poker game. You tell Scott he'll have to try and get his money back from Robert next week. And tell Jean that yes, we appreciated her hospitality last night but it was probably her husband's experimental Twinkie Cake that made Bobby ill." Another pause.
"So it's okay with Warren? Good, then Robbie will probably be in tomorrow. Tell my brother I said thank you, and that he's a sweetie. Thanks, sis." Betsy hung up the phone.
"Robbie? I hate being called Robbie!" Bobby exploded.
"Since when? You didn't object last night when I was screaming your name while I--"
"Stop!" Bobby exclaimed desperately. "Please…I went to bed last night in my room back at the institute and suddenly this morning I'm forty, married to you, living in a--" he stopped short. "Where are we, anyway?"
"Your townhouse," Betsy said, tapping her foot impatiently. "This is your townhouse. Personally, I don't like it, but it is closer to where you work. And my brother Warren talked me into it because you asked him to."
"Warren's your brother? But that's all wrong! Brian Braddock's your brother, you and Warren were going out, and Scott was married to Jean, and Remy was going out with Rogue, and we were all living back at Xavier's mansion and we were the X-Men, and--"
Betsy was looking at him strangely. "Okay, now I know you're not all right. Why would Marie ever go out with a womanizer like Remy? And who in their right mind would marry Scott? Jean is married to Henry McCoy. And who the heck is Brian? Warren's my brother, always has been, and Marie is engaged to him. And who are the X-Men?"
Bobby sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the heavy gold wedding band around his finger, and shook his head, his mind reeling. "This is all wrong," he said, desperately. "This is all wrong. Maybe I fell through an interdimensional portal, or Gateway warped me here, or something like that. This isn't right. None of this is right."
Just then, the door to the bedroom opened, and two girls walked in. Bobby gasped as he recognized Jubilee and Mickie. "Jubilee! Tell Betsy this is all wrong!"
"What's all wrong, Dad?" Mickie asked him. "Are you okay? Mom, he doesn't look right, does he?"
Bobby's mouth hung open in shock as Jubilee walked up to him and felt his forehead, exactly the way Betsy had moments ago. "He doesn't feel warm, but maybe he should go see a doctor, anyway." Her eyes brightened hopefully. "If you need help with him, maybe we could stay home from school to go with you…"
"Absolutely not, young lady," Betsy said, in a tone of voice Bobby was more used to hearing Jean use with the younger students at the institute. "You and your sister are going to march right to the bathroom and get ready for school. I will take your father to Hank and Jean McCoy. They'll fix whatever's wrong with him. Go on, now, scoot." The two girls groaned and walked out of the room. "Now come on, Robbie, let's get you dressed--"
"Don't call me Robbie!" Bobby screeched. "My name is Bobby!"
"Okay, okay, Bobby, then," Betsy said. "Get dressed. I'll drive, and we'll drop the girls off at school before I take you to see Dr. McCoy."
Bobby sat at the kitchen table in a daze, watching as the two girls devoured bowls of Sugar Bombs. He started to get up and reach for the box to pour himself a bowl, but Betsy turned away from the counter and put a bowl down in front of him. "What's this?" he asked her.
Betsy looked at him, puzzled. "Your breakfast, dear. Grape-Nuts. You like Grape-Nuts."
"I do not! I like Sugar Bombs! I've always liked Sugar Bombs!"
Betsy put her hands on her hips. "Since when?"
"Since…since…well, I don't know, I've always liked them! Jubilee and I fight over them all the time at home!"
"This is home," Betsy said in even, clipped tones. "And you have never liked Sugar Bombs. 'They have too much sugar', you said when I first started buying them for the girls, and now every time we go to the dentist you keep saying we wouldn't have nearly as big a bill if the girls stopped eating sugary cereal." She took the empty bowls from the girls. "Go get your teeth brushed and grab your backpacks, girls. Mom's driving you to school today."
"Aw, Mom, can't we take the bus?" the girls chorused.
"No," Betsy said, "Because, if I am not mistaken, the bus just went by. I'll write notes while you go and brush your teeth. Go on, now!" She pulled a pad of paper and started writing notes for the girl's schools as Bobby stared morosely into his bowl of kitty litter. He'd always thought of this particular cereal as kitty litter. He'd given it a try, once, when Jean and Ororo had decided everyone needed to eat healthier and had tossed out all the junk food in the mansion. After the first bite he'd decided to sneak out and get his own stash of Sugar Bombs. Hank had put in a request for his Twinkies, and Logan had gone with him to replenish their stash of alcoholic beverages. Even Scott had helped. Jean and Ororo had both had fits when they found out, but at least they stopped trying to ban junk food from the mansion.
"So, Mom, Dad's little problem…isn't going to stop us from having our sleepover this weekend, is it?" Mickie said hopefully. "I've already asked some of the girls from my class, and Jubes asked Chris from school to come too."
"Of course not," Betsy said to them, keeping her eyes on the road. Bobby sat in the passenger seat, staring silently out the windshield. "We've been planning this for a long time."
"Uh, excuse me," Bobby said, raising his eyebrow. "I don't think it's proper for young ladies like you to have a sleepover with boys."
"Mom!" the girls wailed.
Betsy sighed. "Your father's not feeling well," she said to them. "Don't worry, we're not going to have that argument again. I'll talk to him."
They pulled up in front of Bayville High, and the girls grabbed their backpacks. "Thanks, Mom. We'll see you after school. Bye." They kissed Betsy on the cheek, then Jubilee turned to him. "I'll see you this afternoon, okay, Dad? Feel better. Bye." She kissed him quickly on the cheek, bounced out of the car, and ran up the walk toward the school, catching up with some of her friends halfway there.
"Really, Robbie," Betsy said, and Bobby was so involved with his own thoughts that he completely missed her calling him Robbie. "We've talked and talked about this. We both told the girls that in order for us to trust them by themselves eventually, we have to allow them to show us they can be trusted. And part of that is having a supervised sleepover. It's a lot of girls and boys from their class, and we'll be supervising them to make sure nothing happens, and anyway, we've had 'The Talk' with them, and they know where we stand on that topic, right?"
"Whatever you say," Bobby muttered, still only half-listening to her.
Moments later, they pulled up in front of what looked like an extra-large residential house. The sign out front told them different. 'Dr. Henry McCoy, General Medical Practitioner' said one. And right under it, another small sign reading, 'Jean McCoy, Psychologist.'
He walked up to the door and waited behind Betsy as she rang the bell. And when the door opened he gawked.
Hank was standing there, looking like his old self; chunky yet subtly handsome features, unusually large hands and feet, husky build. And no blue fur or sharp canines. Bobby stared for a moment more, then blurted out, "Hank, what happened to your fur?"
"Excuse me?' the doctor peered at him over the rim of his glasses. "Did I hear you correctly, Mr. Drake? I have no fur, nor have I ever had any. Either you are seriously delusional or you are extremely sick, and in either case you appear in dire need of my assistance, and that of my wife's." He opened the door wider. "You are quite fortunate that I have no patients waiting at the moment, so I can see you immediately. Come this way." He led the way down the hallway and showed Bobby and Betsy into a comfortably appointed sitting room. "Wait here while I get my instruments ready."
Bobby sat down on the edge of an overstuffed wing chair and looked around him uneasily. It looked like every other doctor's office he'd ever been in. The same ubiquitous paintings in soothing pastel colors, the same beige-white walls, the same rather uncomfortable, the same motley assortment of magazines on the low table between the chairs. He picked one up, was idly leafing through it when a tall, pretty red-head walked in through the door Hank had just walked out of. She held the door open as a tall, silver-haired African woman walked through, pushing a wheelchair in which a bald man was seated. "Thank you, Dr. McCoy," the woman was saying.
"Oh, don't worry about it, Mrs. Xavier," Jean said lightly. "I'm glad I could help. Now, remember, your next appointment is in two weeks, so I will see you then, right?" The man nodded, and the trio passed Bobby and Betsy, heading toward the exit door.
"Charles!" Bobby said, springing out of his chair. "Charles, hey, it's Bobby, hey, do you know what's happening?"
"I have never seen you before in my life, young man," Charles Xavier said, with as much dignity as he could manage, given the way Bobby was clinging to his hand. "I have other places to go to, so 'Ro, my dear, if you would…"
"Excuse us," the tall African woman said. "We need to be going."
Jean waited until the two had gone before turning to Bobby. "That was hardly nice," she said. "I never knew you were capable of such rudeness."
"I'm not being rude!" Bobby lunged toward her, reaching for Jean's arms and grabbing them. "You don't understand, this is all wrong, I went to bed last night twenty years old, in my room at Xavier's institute, and this morning I woke up to find I'm twenty years older, married to Betsy with two children, and nothing's the way I remember it!" He shook her a little, desperate. "You have to believe me--"
"Let go of me!" Jean said forcefully, grabbing his hands with hers. "Let go of me, right now, or I'll…"
"Oh my stars and garters," Hank said as he hurried in. He was holding a syringe. "Jean, Mrs. Drake, will you hold him? I shall have to inject him with…"
"No, no, no!" Bobby twisted in Betsy and Jean's arms. "Stop, I'm not crazy, I know this isn't right, let me go…" And then he slumped bonelessly in Betsy's arms and closed his eyes as the sedative Hank had injected him with took effect….
* * *
"Yahhh!"
Bobby sat bolt upright in bed, yelling in shock and surprise as a glass of cold water hit him in the face. He rubbed the cold wetness out of his eyes and stared up in disbelief.
Betsy stood in front of him, holding the glass, her foot tapping impatiently on the floor. "Bobby, I swear, if you wake us all up like that again it will be a bucket of water I throw at you, not just a glass," she said irritably. 'And what were you dreaming about, anyway? You were yelling as if someone was sticking you with needles."
"It was Hank…Dr. McCoy…he was injecting me with a sedative…" And then his surroundings hit him, and he stared around with wide eyes. "I'm back? I'm home? I'm really home?" He looked down. He was dressed in his Marvin the Martian boxers, and his Marvin slippers sat next to his blessedly messy bed, half-hidden under the flower-less! ice-blue comforter that usually adorned his bed. Disbelieving, he slid out of bed and ran to the dresser, looking at his reflection in the mirror. "Holy cow, I'm twenty again! No gray hairs!" He went into an impromptu dance around his room, whooping wildly, as Betsy watched him expressionlessly. After a moment, as it became clear that he was paying no attention to her whatsoever, she turned on her heel and stalked from the room, pulling the door carefully shut behind her.
Out in the hall Jubilee, Mickie, Jean, and Hank were holding their sides, laughing silently. Betsy placed a finger over her lips and led them all down to the kitchen, where, safely out of earshot of Bobby's room, they burst into laughter. They were still giggling and chortling when Scott came down. "Good morning, sweetheart," he said, giving Jean a kiss. "What's the laughter about? I woke up and I didn't see you."
"We were getting a little of our own back against Bobby," Jean answered him, still chuckling. "We put a dream in his head so he'd think he was forty and married to Betsy with Mickie and Jubilee for children."
Scott laughed heartily. "This I have to hear."
Xavier came in just as Jean was finishing up her story, and smiled as he heard the light-hearted laughter around the table. "Do I want to know what the joke is about?" he asked, helping himself to a cup of coffee.
"No," Jean said. "We were just getting back at Bobby for all the 'end of school year' pranks he's been playing on all of us. Just a little bit of harmless fun."
Bobby chose that moment to come bouncing into the kitchen, still dressed in his Marvin boxers but now with the addition of a t-shirt. He slid across the smooth tile of the kitchen floor, coming to a stop in front of the cereal cupboard, and opened it.
"The Grape-Nuts are over there in the corner," Betsy said sweetly. Bobby turned to her, giving her a narrow-eyed, considering look, then he reached for the box of Sugar Bombs and grabbed it, opened it, stuck his hand in it, and pulled out a handful, stuffing it into his mouth. He was about to bounce out of the kitchen when Mickie held out his shirt. "Bobby. I got your shirt done."
"Oh, gee, thanks, Mickie," he said rather indistinctly through a full mouth. Ororo, just walking into the kitchen, gave him a disapproving look. "Robert, you should not talk with your mouth full," she chided him. Bobby wrinkled his nose, nodded, then took the shirt Mickie was holding out and bounced back out of the kitchen.
"Uh, Mickie, am I right or did that shirt collar…" Jubilee started then trailed off as Mickie started to laugh. The adults looked on, puzzled, until Mickie brought herself under control sufficiently to explain the joke. Just as she finished, there came a howl from the top of the stairs. "MICKIE!!" It was Bobby.
Jean chuckled, "I think I feel like shopping, how about you?" she asked the two girls. As they heard Bobby's footsteps come back down the stairs, she led Jubilee and Mickie out the kitchen door to the garage.