§ § § -- April 17, 1994

Anne Carleton welcomed Toria and Gabi into her hotel room with a delighted grin. "Hi, you two, it's great to see you!" she exclaimed. "Gabi Wickham, it's been forever since we saw each other last. Where was it you moved to, Nova Scotia?"

Gabi nodded and returned Anne's hug, explaining about her recent marriage. The three friends caught up for a few minutes; then Anne regarded Toria with a wondering look. "I'm so glad for you, Toria. We all heard you'd never walk again—obviously the doctors were wrong."

Gabi and Toria looked uneasily at each other; Toria had explained the true purpose of their visit to Fantasy Island to Gabi, and they both wondered if they should let Anne in on it. "Maybe you'd better tell her, Toria," Gabi finally said ruefully.

Anne glanced back and forth between them in confusion. "Tell me what?"

Toria sighed and stared at her feet, wiggling her toes inside the navy flats she'd been wearing all weekend. Anne and Gabi followed her gaze and watched the movements of her toes inside the shoes, before Toria said reluctantly, "Soon I won't be able to do this anymore, Anne. What you and the others heard was true. I was paralyzed from the hips down in that accident, and it's permanent." She lifted her gaze to meet Anne's. "The reason I'm walking and wiggling my toes right now is because Sammie and I came here for a fantasy." She told Anne the entire story then, watching the play of vivid emotion across Anne's face.

Anne's hand drifted toward her mouth as Toria wound up her narrative. "Oh Toria…I can't imagine! You must wish so badly that this could be forever!"

"Mr. Roarke said it isn't possible," Toria told her. "I'm borrowing Samantha's mobility for the weekend—these shoes I'm wearing have it 'stored' inside them, if I have Mr. Roarke's explanation right. Sammie's been in my wheelchair since yesterday morning. But our fantasy ends sometime this evening, and then I'll have to go back to wheeling myself everywhere I want to go."

Anne shook her head slowly. "We all wondered what had really happened," she said. "None of us ever forgot—I still have dreams about the accident, and Mark's family never got over his death. They moved to British Columbia within a month after he was killed."

Toria looked up in surprise. "I never knew that."

"I wish you'd stayed in touch with us, Toria," Anne said earnestly. "It wasn't long before we found out how the accident happened."

"I know now myself," Toria broke in, her expression hardening. "Aaron Weld. As a matter of fact, Anne, that's why I came. Where is he? I want to confront him myself."

A strange expression came over Anne's features and she looked away, fidgeting for a moment before taking a breath and straightening her posture. She turned back then and said quietly, "Toria, Aaron Weld committed suicide the end of that summer."

Gabi gasped; Toria blanched so suddenly and completely that she thought for a moment she might faint. The room tilted slightly and she went numb with shock. Unable to respond, she gaped stupidly at Anne, whose own face had paled a bit.

"Oh my God," Gabi blurted. "Was it because of the accident?"

Anne nodded. "Aaron was driving the car that hit us that night," she explained, her voice soft and a little shaky. "He was on his way home from some party or another. He hadn't been drinking, but the roads were slippery in the rain, and he lost control of the car just as we were coming up to pass him going the other way. He suffered a broken collarbone in the accident, so he didn't get away unscathed. But later on, he discovered that Mark had been killed and Toria paralyzed, and it destroyed him. He kept saying he was the one who should have died in that wreck. Nothing anyone said could change his viewpoint; he always insisted on blaming himself. His guilt just got to be too much for him to bear, and toward the end of August, he swallowed rat poison." Gabi moaned in distress and turned away, and Anne's voice dropped to a whisper. "He left a note…said he couldn't live with himself and what he'd done any longer. He felt responsible and decided it was the only way he could properly atone for it."

Toria stared, reeling, unable to move for the incredible shock. An oppressive silence dropped in the room and hung over the three friends for what seemed like the rest of the afternoon. After a long time she croaked, "I should have…"

"You couldn't have done anything either," Anne told her immediately, sitting on the end of the bed next to her and resting a hand on Toria's shoulder. "Aaron was irrevocably convinced that he was solely to blame and that dying himself was the only way he could make it right. Oh, Toria, you never knew? It was in the newspapers."

Toria gawked at her, still blindsided. "I…I cut myself off from any reminders after the accident. I was…I had so much anger in me. It's been eating at me the way Aaron's guilt ate at him. I seem to remember Sammie told me one day that there was a newspaper article she thought I should see, but I wouldn't have anything to do with it. I was determined to close myself off in my own little world." Her vision wavered and her eyes grew glassy with tears. "What a jerk I was. What a self-pitying, bitter jerk. Aaron paid the ultimate price for what was just a tragic accident all along…" She wilted into sobs then, and Anne and Gabi closed ranks, flanking their friend and hugging her and each other, all of them crying.

It was a catharsis for them; the dam seemed to break then, and they spent the next hour and a half talking earnestly. Eventually Anne cast a passing glance at the bedside clock and then did a double-take. "My gosh, it's past four o'clock already. Toria, why don't we go back to yours and Samantha's bungalow? I'd like to see Sam and catch up with her too."

Toria nodded. "A great idea," she agreed. "Come on, you two. I'm so glad we were able to connect again." She gripped Anne's hand in one of hers and Gabi's in the other. "You two were always the best friends I ever had. I promise, from now on I'll stay in touch with both of you. And we've got to be sure to get together as often as we can, even with you all the way out in Nova Scotia." She playfully stuck her tongue out at Gabi, who rolled her eyes and joined in the laughter.

Samantha looked up in amazement from the book she had been reading when the threesome walked into the bungalow. "Whoa, Toria! What's this, old home week?"

"You could say that," Toria said, eyes sparkling. "Sammie, I've got my two best friends back, and I learned something this afternoon. I think things are gonna be totally different for me once we get back home."

Samantha stared at them. "Wow," she said. "Anne and Gabi, if you two are responsible for this change in my sister, then you have my eternal, undying gratitude." Anne and Gabi both laughed. "So come on, tell me."

Toria, Gabi and Anne summarized the events of that afternoon while Samantha sat bug-eyed, struggling to absorb it all. Once they'd finished explaining, she slowly shook her head. "That's absolutely amazing. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard, and what a waste of a life. Poor Aaron."

"But in a way, Aaron brought me back to the real world," Toria said, "and gave me back my best friends too. I just wish there were some way he could know that."

Samantha smiled. "I think it's enough that you know it, Toria. So hey, do you think we oughta have dinner out and celebrate?"

Toria's face clouded. "I don't think we can…remember what Mr. Roarke said?"

Samantha bit her lip. "Oh, that's right." Anne and Gabi looked at each other.

"Maybe we'd better let you two have some time alone," Anne suggested gently. "Toria told us about your fantasy. Listen…I'm flying out on the same plane as you two tomorrow morning, so we'll be able to catch up some more on the way home." She poked Gabi. "As for you, Mrs. Newlywed, you'd better send us some postcards, since you and Dean plan to bake in the sun for another five or six days."

Gabi grinned. "Eat your heart out." They all laughed, and Anne and Gabi left the bungalow amid many goodbyes and promises to stay in touch.

Two hours later, there was a knock on the door, and Toria looked up from her newly reclaimed wheelchair, from which she had been folding clothes for repacking. "Who do you suppose that is?"

Samantha glanced out the bedroom door and shrugged. "I'll get it. You finish that—you were always better at folding than I was anyway." Toria laughed while Samantha walked briskly through the main room. Figuring it was probably Roarke, she opened the door and then froze. There at the end of the wheelchair ramp sat Darryl Kellett.

Realization hit him at the same instant it did her, and they stared at each other, she in shock and growing fear, he in sheer bewilderment. "What the…Samantha?" he asked after a very charged moment.

Samantha nodded faintly. "I…wasn't expecting…"

"I guess not," Darryl said, still heavily confused, looking her up and down several times as if to assure himself that she really wasn't in a wheelchair.

She floundered, reaching out tentatively, trying to get a physical grip on a very intangible situation. "Darryl, I hope you'll let me explain."

He gave his head a hard shake as if trying to clear it. "What happened to…"

"…the wheelchair?" Samantha finished. "Darryl, truly, I meant to tell you last night, but we got…uh, distracted. My sister is really the one in the wheelchair…she and I had a fantasy, and it just ended a little while ago." She winced and hung her head. "It's amazing how lame the truth can sound. But it is the truth—you can check with Mr. Roarke."

Darryl made a rude noise that brought Samantha's apprehensive gaze up to collide with his. "I don't think I need to bother. You told me all I really needed to know. You and your sister are having some fun at my expense, from the look of things."

"No," Samantha cried, "it's not that way at all!"

From behind her Toria called out, "Sammie, is everything okay?" She appeared in the doorway beside Samantha a moment later, having deftly wheeled herself up the indoor ramp, and now peered at Darryl curiously. "You must be the guy Sammie met this weekend, the stockbroker from Chicago. I'm Sammie's sister, Toria."

Darryl stared now at her, trying to take in this new reality. "Are you faking it the way your sister was?"

Toria glared at him. "No, I happen to be paralyzed. Sammie and I traded places for the weekend, with a lot of help from Mr. Roarke. We just resumed our real roles in life."

Darryl shook his head again. "Geez. Just my lousy luck to find a woman I thought I could really connect with, and it all turns out to be a damn fantasy. What a wasted weekend this has been!" Samantha gasped and burst into tears, whirling away and disappearing inside the bungalow.

"So are you saying you can't connect with a woman unless she's in a wheelchair like you?" Toria demanded, outraged for her sister. "Boy, the more I learn about you, the less I like you. I'm becoming convinced that Sammie's better off without a shallow jerk like you. If you think she has to be in a wheelchair to be worthy of your love, then all I can tell you is that you're missing out on something very special. Not that you care—you can't see the forest for the trees, I'm thinking. Why don't you get lost?" She backed up her chair and slammed the door on him.

Darryl Kellett let his chair roll down the slope of the ramp, trying to make sense out of what Toria and Samantha had said. Samantha had had plenty of opportunities to tell him; why had she continually put it off? He was so busy stewing that he nearly ran into Leslie, who was on her way up the lane toward the Elliott bungalow to collect the shoes Toria had worn for the weekend. "Oh, excuse me, Leslie," he said.

"You look preoccupied," Leslie observed curiously.

He sighed. "Yeah, you could call it that, I guess. Uh, I have a question for you."

She glanced ahead of her, hesitated and said, "I don't want to seem like I'm dodging you, Mr. Kellett, but I need to finish my errand. If you don't mind waiting here for a few minutes, I'll be right back, and I'll see if I can help you."

Darryl shrugged. "Why not. I'm not going anywhere." She smiled apologetically and resumed her walk to the bungalow, this time half jogging in order to complete the errand a little sooner.

She was met at the door by Toria, who smiled at her. "Hi, Leslie. I guess you're here for the shoes."

Leslie nodded. "How was the transition back to the wheelchair?"

"About as smooth as it could be expected to be," Toria replied with a shrug. She turned her chair around and rolled it back down the ramp into the main room, where she lifted a shoe box. Leslie had descended the steps behind her and accepted the box with a smile of thanks. "You know, Sammie and I had intended this weekend to be sort of an exercise in learning about each other. Walking a mile in each other's shoes, if you'll pardon the pun." She and Leslie both grinned. "But I learned something totally unexpected, and poor Sammie fell in love and got her heart broken. I wonder if we ought to stay longer, because when we go back home, she's probably going to throw herself into her work. And she's had little enough rest as it is."

Leslie studied her in surprise. "Fell in love?"

"Some guy in a wheelchair," Toria said, disgusted. "He just left here after finding out I'm actually the one with the wheels. Seems he thought we were trying to pull a fast one on him. Sammie never got a chance to tell him she was using my chair only for the weekend. I told him to get lost, if he thinks Samantha's good enough for him only when she's in a wheelchair." She shook her head.

"I see," said Leslie thoughtfully. "I'm sorry to hear that. Is she okay?"

Samantha appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking worn-out, her eyes red and her cheeks blotchy. She smiled wanly. "Hi, Leslie. I guess I'll be okay in time. It's just that Darryl was the first guy I ever connected with on that level, and it hurts to realize he doesn't want me now that he knows I can walk."

"The guy's just got some growing up to do, that's all," Toria said flatly. She cast her sister a rueful glance. "Fine thing for me to say, when I had some growing up to do myself."

"The difference is, you did your growing up, and he hasn't," Samantha said. "Never mind about it now. I wouldn't have time for a love life anyway. Leslie, it's been a heck of a weekend, and I just want to thank you. Don't let us keep you from anything."

Leslie grinned. "Oh, you're not. I just came over to pick up the shoes, and that's done. You two have a good night." They wished her the same, and she left the bungalow, retracing her steps to where Darryl Kellett still waited in the lane.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked with a half-grin.

She chuckled. "Not at all. I'm just on my way back to the main house, and you can be my escort. So…what was your question?"

Darryl rolled the chair a few feet before replying. "I met someone here this weekend. Beautiful, smart, funny lady. She was in a wheelchair like me…or at least, I thought she was. Then I went over to her bungalow this evening and discovered she actually isn't in a wheelchair at all; supposedly her sister is. They claimed they'd been having a fantasy." He peered skeptically up at Leslie. "What kind of garbage is that?"

"The true kind," Leslie replied amiably, smiling at him. "I presume you're speaking of Samantha and Victoria Elliott." When Darryl nodded, she went on: "Toria was paralyzed in a car accident as a teenager, and Samantha's supported her and taken care of her since then. They came here to exchange places for the weekend and get a little glimpse into each other's lifestyles. My father arranged it for them, with the help of these shoes." She lifted the shoe box to display it at him for a moment.

"You mean…Mr. Roarke granted them a fantasy, and…" Darryl began.

"Exactly," said Leslie. "Samantha lent Toria her ability to walk for these two days. You simply happened to meet her while she was wheelchair-bound."

"She should have told me," Darryl barked out, his anger resurfacing. "I thought she and I had something major in common, and I never fell in love so fast in my life. Now I find out it was all a selfish game. That's a hell of a note to end a weekend on."

Leslie stopped and turned to face him. "Let me get this straight. You fell in love with Samantha because she was in a wheelchair?"

Caught up short, Darryl stared back at her, unable to reply. She interpreted this as assent and sighed deeply. "Mr. Kellett, believe me, that's a bad criterion on which to base your attraction to someone. You yourself said she was smart and funny and beautiful. Are you telling me that's not enough for you? That her being in a wheelchair was the most important thing to you? If that's true, then I feel sorry for you." She fielded his outraged expression and held up a hand. "Before you go popping off, let me give you something to think about. Samantha Elliott gave up her ability to walk for a weekend so that her sister could have one last chance to walk, run, dance, swim, everything she hasn't been able to do for the last fourteen years. That's one of the most unselfish things I've ever known anyone to do for anyone else. In my eyes, she's about the least likely person I know of to play what you called 'selfish games'." She paused, but Darryl was still too startled to reply, so she gave a nod. "Have a good evening, Mr. Kellett. Excuse me, please." With that, she walked away.

Darryl Kellett sat in the lane staring sightlessly into the trees, mind racing, not moving till a jeep came along and forced him to wheel to the roadside. He watched it retreat past him and let his gaze drift off to the Elliott bungalow, still partially visible from his vantage point. Blowing out a deep sigh, he slowly rolled away.