Surviving Stephanie Chapter 38, Epilogue
Disclaimer: Janet's plot has been most thoroughly mauled. But the characters are still essentially hers except of course for Alyssa.
Note: This may get a little mushy. I tried to keep it under control, but even I can get a little sappy sometimes. I'm not totally happy with this, but I think it works. Anyway, this is it. The end of the story... if you want me to post the sequel, or not- tell me, okay? As for the epilogue(s): if you take them seriously I will have no choice but to aim a rocketlauncher at you.
Thanks to all of you for being so great and for all the wonderful feedback!
Nathan'sRaven: Thank you so much, I hope you like this ending. I do have the sequel started, but I'm not sure if I ought to post it here or not. I agree with your assessment- TMM in Eleven, but it is still an improvement. And thanks again, for all the encouragement.
Allison: Hope this was soon enough, and thank you!
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I yawned and rolled my shoulders before looking back down at my notebook and hurriedly scribbling another note. I should know better than to party like that when I had this fraggin' class this early…
I was back at school, sitting in the front row of Intro to Philosophy, drowning in the smell of Dr. Fielding's pipe smoke and the faint notes of Tommy cologne on the guy next to me.
I was wearing my favorite LEI's, the ones with the brown tinge and the embroidery on the back pockets that made my butt look awesome and my favorite blue camisole. The outfit had definitely attracted the Tommy guy's attention and he kept glancing my way when he thought I didn't notice. I sighed and tried to remember his name. Daniel? David? How was I supposed to remember names, there were so many of them and only one of me…
Stop it, Lyss. You need to pay attention in here or you're totally going to flunk. Yeah, and if I keep partying and having weird ass dreams about clearly fictional universes and falling in love with a guy too perfect to exist I'll have bigger things to worry about than flunking Philosophy…
Dr. Fielding was droning on about some principal of something or other, and if Capt. Kirke beamed down and the beam hit a nebula cloud and split in two so you had two Kirkes which was the real one?
I sighed and took my notes. Two William Shatners? I was going to have nightmares for months. Then Tommy Boy asked some question about reality. We had just covered that stuff hadn't we? I flipped back a page. Why did people ask questions in here? Dear gods, why? Wasn't it bad enough getting an overview? Why in the hell would you want to go back and rehash it? I was feeling the beginning of my thrice-weekly Philosophy-induced headache.
Dr. Fielding launched off on another line of theory. I tried to take notes and not think too much. I wasn't good with philosophy- this was Chelsea's fascination not mine. Intellectual hedonism was my idea of deep thought.
"Let us say," Dr. Fielding's voice boomed out across the small classroom, "that you were in a terrible accident, or maybe you had some sort of disease that left you completely paralyzed, on life support, unable to move or speak but your mind is untouched. Your brain is the only thing completely untouched. Now your parents are approached by a new software company. They can hook your brain into a computer and create an entire virtual universe for you. You will touch, taste, feel… As far as you're concerned it will be entirely real. But is it?"
I froze, seeing again the flash of institutional green paint on the stairwell, feeling the sick sensation of falling without a hope of catching hold of anything. I could hear Chelsea yelling, or maybe Renee…
As I stared in horror, a round dot of red appeared in the middle of Dr. Fielding's chest, and he turned to me accusingly, his pointer suddenly glowing red on the end. The jock by the door stood up and reached for something in his letterman's jacket. Without thinking I raised my pencil, except it wasn't a pencil now. I was holding a gun. A gun with a silencer…
Oh, I wondered where that went…
A soft sound made me open my eyes and I blinked up at a white ceiling. I turned my head and found myself looking up at a… a really, really hot guy. His skin was mocha and his eyes were the color of midnight, except not that blue midnight, the real midnight. The black midnight that's made for stepping in between worlds and dancing under the stars.
"Easy, Babe," he said softly, touching my cheek with a gentle but kind of calloused hand.
I sighed and felt my eyes closing again. "Wrong girl, Ranger…"
And the dark midnight pulled me back. Worry about it tomorrow, the blackness urged. Now was the time to rest. I drifted in the dark, watching the lights behind my eyes make pretty shapes. To sleep, perchance to dream… you were so smart, Will Shakespeare. You probably talked a lot, too.
Voices drifted through the darkness sometimes. A few of them I thought I knew, some of them I even had the edge of a name to put to them, but most of them were as unfamiliar as the breeze. Most of the time they spoke English, but there were times when the rhythm and softer syllables of Spanish washed over me. It sounded so pretty, but I couldn't catch all the words and usually I only heard small parts of sentences before I gave up and drifted away again.
It was the Spanish that finally caught my attention, though. I'd been having a lovely dream about flying horses and pink fluffy clouds and crystal castles when the Spanish showed up. And it was asking me something and… and… hey, I knew that voice. I turned away from Star Prancer, the metallic teal flying horse, tilting my head to listen.
"Por favor, bebe, despierte. Le necesito.. tu risa, y tu amor." The whispered request hit me with the force of a MAC truck, and fairly knocked me out of the dark. I wondered if a MAC really had been involved for a moment as I adjusted to the feeling of dull, throbbing aches all over my body. Gods, if this were just the beginning, did I really want to open my—
"Moonbeam, wake up."
Oh, that did it. I felt like I was clawing up from the depths as I forced myself to wake up completely. Nobody was going to use that… My eyes wouldn't open and when they finally did I was staring at a mocha colored blur, tinged with black. For a crazy moment I couldn't for the life of me think where I was.
"How did—Where—Ranger?" My throat hurt and my voice came out as a croak.
"Easy," he said, bending to kiss my cheek.
"You called me that name," I said, ignoring the pain in my throat. Everywhere else was throbbing, it could join the club.
"Thought that might get your attention," he didn't look at all sorry about it, either. Grr.
I opened my mouth to tell him off but the arrival of a harried nurse and lovely woman in a white lab coat distracted me. Dr. Doolittle, her nametag said.
Oh, cripes. I wasn't even going there.
"How are you feeling?" she asked as the nurse handed me a glass of water and a small cup containing a pretty blue pill.
"Fine," I smiled, "bordering on chipper, and tomorrow planning on being obnoxious."
"That's good," she said with an answering smile. "I just need to check you over, and we'll see about getting you out of here."
I saw Ranger slip out the door and sighed. Out of here to where, Doc? That was the question. Not wanting to ask, I took the pill and settled in to wait for her to check my charts.
An eternity and a half later, Dr. Doolittle said I seemed to be doing very well and wrote me out a script for some more pain medications along with some other junk. The pretty blue pill, being a pain pill, was working its way through my system by that time and I was finding it harder to concentrate.
Apparently I had been out for a couple days and I was probably going to need at least a couple weeks for recovery, maybe longer. She advised me to avoid stress for a little while and to maybe consider some counseling. Yeah, and if I didn't Ranger could always lock me in Jack's office.
Ranger had reappeared at some point, holding a bag that I guessed held some of my clothes. I had made it to the point of sitting up on the edge of the bed, but actually standing up seemed like just too much to ask.
"Come on, Babe," he said, offering me a hand. I took it, reluctantly, and stood up as slowly as I could. Okay, that wasn't so bad.
Then I took a step. Big, big mistake. I whimpered and felt my knees buckling as my head started to swim. I was dimly aware that my body was in pain but I didn't really seem to care. It was weird.
Ranger caught my arms and steadied me until I got back in control, then helped me to get dressed. For probably the third time in my life I felt self-conscious about my body. "Hey, um, I could do this myself," I said, as the hospital gown started to slide down my arms.
"It'll be easier if I help."
"Can you turn the lights off then or something? I'm kind of tired of you seeing me naked and funny colors."
Ranger grinned. "I'll take you naked in any color you want."
I thought about that. Hoped he liked 'blushing beet red.' Judging from the wolf-y look it was a yes. "I look like a mummy," I tried again, with a disgruntled look down at my bandaged midsection, legs, and arms for emphasis.
"All the better to unwrap you." And we both laughed.
The wolf look disappeared as he helped me on with my shirt and his hands brushed over the bandages on my sides. His eyes went down, following the curve of my hip where it was covered over with bandages, bruises, and scrapes, and I watched the muscle in his jaw tighten.
"It's a good thing Abruzzi's already dead." His voice was rough; I could hear the anger. He lifted those burning dark eyes to meet mine and touched my cheek. Unconsciously I leaned into his hand. I decided to stay quiet for a change as his gaze held mine, with a meaningful look I didn't understand. I really wished I could have ESP too.
He didn't say anything else as he helped me on with a pair of unbelievably soft brushed cotton draw-string pants and flip flops.
We might have stayed quiet forever, except that I happened to realize the clothes I was wearing weren't ones I had seen before, and they looked really new. White, light cotton pants and shirt… flip flops… I looked like an ad for the Bahamas. "Ranger, whose clothes are these?"
"Yours."
"They're new."
"Thought you might like something that fit." I blinked at that and took a moment to process it.
"Thanks, Higgs." It seemed the only thing to say, really. Anything else sounded ungrateful. Or worse, mushy. Mushy and pretty blue pills probably didn't mix.
He smiled and held the door open. "You're welcome, Babe. Always."
I stepped out the door, suddenly transfixed by the way the cotton moved with me. It drifted sort of, and looked all breezy… the flip-flops made fun noises, too. And I never noticed tile was so pretty and shiny…
"Hey, Moonbeam," said a deep gravelly voice. "Feeling better?"
"Tank!" I looked up to find him across the hall, along with Lester. "Hey, I—" wait, something isn't right here… "Moonbeam? Did you just call me…? Ranger!" I whined.
I heard the bat chuckle. "It's on your papers."
"They never… You never… " I was stunned into almost speechlessness.
"Aw, come on. It's cute." Lester was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"Cute?" I glared at him. "Cute!" He was cute. Ranger was cute. Maybe I was cute. But 'Moonbeam' was not the right kind of cute, damn it.
"You know giving them a reaction like that is just going to make it worse," Ranger advised. Damn it, he needed to quit being right. Change of tactics… I shot him my best wide-eyed Bambi look. Look, I'm little and helpless, make the big thugs behave. He shook his head.
"She's good," Lester chortled. "Careful, Ranger."
"Can someone please take me home?" I sighed, giving up.
"Sure thing, angel," Tank said. "We'll grab some dinner on our way. Les can take care of getting your drugs."
"We're going to Wayne Manor?" I tried not to look too shocked.
"You said home didn't you?" Les said, giving his own innocent look. Damn he was even better at that than I was.
I considered my options. I could pitch a fit because I was getting herded into the Bat Cave to enjoy a two week recovery period in a huge, gorgeous house with huge, gorgeous guys and thus retain my self-respect and independence. Uh-huh. Right. Like I'd respect myself if I didn't go. And seeing what life was like with these guys would be a hell of a lot more fun than a dorm-like apartment and a hamster.
"All right, let's go home, guys. Food sounds great."
Oh yeah, I needed to ask about what happened with the Abruzzi deal and tell everybody about Remo and ask about Val and call my parents… but I'd worry about that tomorrow. I was taking tonight to enjoy the MIBs, some dinner, and Vicadin.
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Epilogue/ Possible Explanation
NOTE: This came up because apparently, hacking into Janet's computer has become a very, very tempting idea to some of us. Accept this ending or not, it was just a fluffy idea that I thought would be fun to tack on. Actually, someone suggested it's actually the explanation for Metro Girl, but I'll let you judge that.
Janet Evanovich stared at her computer screen, puzzled. She looked back at the outline she'd written on the pad of note paper, flipped through all the ideas she'd jotted down over the last ten books.
She looked back at the computer screen.
That was definitely not the way she'd intended the story to go. It was close, but it wasn't what she had planned. In fact, the narrative didn't even sound like Stephanie's voice. She sighed and cut the offending chunks of text, then pasted them into the Other file. The Other file that seemed to get bigger with every book. In fact it was beginning to resemble a book on its own. Several of them in fact, since there was an Other file for books eight, nine, and ten. Files that read almost like they were their own books. An entire alternate Plum universe no one but she and Alex would ever see. Janet shook her head sadly. She was even beginning to get an image of the Other Stephanie, imagine an entirely unique voice for that Other character who seemed to be trying to creep into her real plotlines more and more often. Idly she wondered whether her editors would go for the idea of reworking the Stephanie books.
Maybe she'd just been working on this series too long.
Maybe it was time for to start some other project.
With a last regretful sigh, she saved both files and closed out her word processor. She'd worry about it tomorrow. Right now there was a bag of cheez doodles calling her name.