(A/N – Oh my, this is the last chapter. I am seriously gonna cry. It has been an amazing two years of writing this series, and now that me, Lindsay, and Stewie look back on this, we all are gonna laugh and remember all the little inside jokes and keep it with us always. I write this not only for fun, but as something for all three of us to stay connected with; in the years that'll come between us for college and stuff, we can always look back and say that this was our adventure and our story of growing up with huge amounts of exaggeration and fun. I wrote this because the friendship between us is unbelievably strong, and I wouldn't want to have an adventure with pirates with any other two people than them. I love you two so much, and we are sisters, even if we can't finish each other's sentences or read each other's mind all the time. We still laugh together, support one another, and have undying unconditional love for one another – and that is the best thing I have ever felt or had or known. Just to be with you is awesome, even if we don't have pirates with us. But honestly, nothing will ever take away my love for you two. Even though we are three very different people with three very different sets of beliefs wo occasionally screw up big time, we have three hearts that beat the same and are bound forever with love, and now, this story.)
To me hearties with whom all the best – and worst – stuff happens; this was for you.
Love ya Lindz and Jess.
Don't cry, Reviewers!
x) Norma Jean - Oddness! I've never seen A Beautiful Mand but have seen Aladdin a thousand times since I got for Christmas when I was three, lol. Ah, yes, strange imagination, but a gift (if that's what you want to call it) that I intend not to waste, but to give to the world. Thanks for the review and ebjoy these last few!
x) Sentinel Sparrow - Hey! It's okay! There may be another whole chapter after this one! I had to shorten this one because it was like three pages too long, lol. So yeah, it's alright. There will be more. So smile! Jack loves you! lol. Thanks!
x) Kenny - I saw what Kitty put up, so you better continue it! LoL... not a threat, but a promise. I intend to smite you if you don't, haha. Thanks for the dots! Enjoy!
.: It's okay:.
CLE – "Mad World" by Gary JulesDisclaimers…
Claimers…
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: "For better and worse."
I was panicking.
I looked at Lindsay who was pretty much my reflection at the moment – both of our mouths hung open in fear and disbelief, and our eyes were bigger than I had ever recalled. Both of us were breathing rapidly with hearts beating three times faster than that; I wanted to faint.
"Lindsay?" I asked weakly, my voice struggling to sound.
"Y-yeah?" She had trouble speaking as well.
"Um… what just happened?"
"I have an idea," she said, looking around, "but I hope I'm wrong."
Our eyes met again, and we immediately leapt to our feet and clambered off of the air mattress tangled in the blankets. We ripped them away from ourselves and ran eight feet to Lindsay's old bedroom door. We slammed against it, having trouble opening it, and then Lindsay finally got the doorknob to turn. We pushed against it and almost fell into the room, but rather, we stumbled.
When we stood up in the doorway, we were astonished, but we had half expected it. This room – it was hers again. All the wallpaper was still up, and her bed was tussled around in the middle of her room as if we had just been jumping on it a few hours ago. Bright clothes were in a pile next to her old clothes chest, and the light was bright. It shown over everything, making it even more realistic.
"This is impossible," Lindsay panted. "This is Justin's room now! He took it after I moved in with my dad last year and he…" Lindsay trailed off after her voice gave out. She tried to read the calendar on the opposite wall, but she couldn't.
Both of us were afraid to go in, though; if we went in and the floor didn't disappear from beneath us, it would be finalized. For once, we were hoping that it wasn't her room that was in front of us. We were hoping for a hologram or something.
"Isn't there another one in the kitchen?" I asked, looking over at her. She swallowed hard before nodding her head in response.
"There should be if we're where we think we are."
We moved back towards the living room, leaving her bedroom door ajar. She stopped and looked up at the clock again as it chimed nine o'clock. I looked, too. Nine o'clock at night in Lindsay's Grandma's house, a year and a half younger, praying that what we're thinking isn't true or real. As I looked over at Lindsay, she had determination and anger mixed on her face as she tore her eyes away from the clock and proceeded cautiously into the kitchen.
The table was still in the middle of the room with open bags and boxes of food we had left lie out that night of the sleepover. The kitchen was it's old self, not the one that had recently been remodeled after Lindsay had moved out. We wandered in absentmindedly, staring at everything in shock.
"This is all wrong," I finally managed to say. "If this isn't a dream, I don't get it. I still remember everything from before and…"
"I do, too," Lindsay said with a long sigh.
"It's weird… almost like… we're getting a second chance."
Lindsay didn't comment as she went over to the phone on the wall and grabbed it. She began dialing a number, and I went up to her.
"Who are you calling?"
"Stewart," she replied.
"You can't," I said, putting my hand over the receiver.
"Why not?"
"Because she's still visiting her relatives in Uniontown, remember? She won't be back until tomorrow."
Then she erased the number and began to dial another.
"Now who are you calling?"
"Kourey."
"With a 'K'?"
"Yep."
"You can't!"
"Why not!"
"Because we don't meet him for another thirteen months," I said evenly as we stared at each other. "He won't know who you are. No one does. John doesn't know you, Steve doesn't know you, Nate doesn't know you, I'm not good friends with Josh yet, and we've never even met Vicky or been to her house!"
I grabbed Lindsay's shoulders because both of us were becoming unstable at these thoughts.
"So we're back," she said searchingly. "We're back to the night of our sleepover."
"The night we met," I added in acknowledgement in reference to the pirates. "It's about two hours until we met," I said, motioning to the stove's dim glowing clock. "And this just proves that this isn't a dream. We remember it all."
"That's not a dream, it's a nightmare," Lindsay said. "Maybe we have to do something different," she suggested. "Like be prepared to meet them this time."
"I don't think so," I said sadly. "I think we're just being put back."
"But we still remember everything!" Lindsay said in a high voice. "We remember everyone, all the mistakes, all the things that happened!"
"I know. Weird, huh?" I asked quietly.
"Do you think Stewie will remember, too?"
"Possibly."
"Then why wouldn't Kourey or anyone else?"
"I don't know! Maybe because they didn't discover the pirates, rather they were introduced to them," I threw out as a theory.
"Well then if that's the case, Stewie wouldn't remember," Lindsay said. "We introduced her to them. Remember?"
"Well that'll suck," I muttered. "We remember and she won't?"
"Think of all the advice we could give her, though," Lindsay said. "We could be like oracles or something. Help her pass, you know."
"We could change our futures," I said seriously. "For better and worse."
"But… this is just crazy."
"I know. I think we should take a walk."
Lindsay looked at me for a moment before hanging the phone back up and leaving out a long, withheld sigh. "Yeah, I could use some fresh air to clear my head even though it won't help much," she said. "Grab you coat and come on. My grandma's back in hour though, don't forget."
- At the Playground – 9:10 PM -
The two of us together walked down Pittsburgh Street and turned into Sullivan Alley where Stewie's house was. No one was home, not even one of her eleven siblings. Of course, she's the youngest and most had moved out, so go figure… Anyways, her house was dark, and we continued walking to the playground. We looked it over, trying to accept this fact of the walking path not being there now and that a few things were older and still not painted. We walked behind the bathrooms and tennis court along a row of trees until we stopped at the last one – Tree De Little.
Lindsay and I stared at it in silence for a while in thought. It was just killing me that we knew everything that would happen in this place in the next year and a half and no one else would. What was worse, we didn't have the evidence to prove anything.
"Stewie and I won't sit in this tree and christen it for another two months," I said without emotion. It was like a sad statement, maybe. I sighed. "I shouldn't know this stuff," I said with my chest tightening.
"I know," Lindsay said.
We stood there and stared at for a few moments until Lindsay read my mind and began walking around to the other side of the tree. She began to climb up it, and I followed with a small smile; we may not always be able to read each other's minds, but when we can, it's pretty cool what we're thinking.
We climbed up into the tree in silence, Lindsay stopping at her branch and allowing me to pass to mine. I sat and watched my hand run along the wood slowly so that I could feel it. It felt real and was real, but it had a different sense to it you might say. Like a vibe of some sort. Lindsay and I looked at each other, and then I looked up at the moon through the little leafy canopy above my left shoulder.
"I don't know…" I turned back to Lindsay who was looking at her hands as she struggled to find the words to say something. I listened as she continued.
"Don't know what?" I asked.
"I just… how? I mean, is there a purpose to all this?" she asked carefully. "Like other than us just reliving our lives without the pirates?"
"I don't know," I said honestly. "I haven't a clue."
"There's so much now that we can avoid and prevent and change," Lindsay said as if in a trance of realization. "We know when things will happen and what will happen if, say we didn't get back in time to the house after sneaking out at a sleepover," she said.
"Yeah, like the one where the cops came to at your mom's," I said. "We'll know to avoid that now."
"And the guys!" she added. "All the crazy dips I went out with… I can just turn my cheek and walk the other way now." I nodded. Good logic behind that.
"And tests and conflicts in our lives," I added as well. "We can change it all, but it may change who we are a year and a half from now." I looked Lindsay in the eye. "We may not be the same people we were. We will not be the same people we were. Knowing what we do is bound to change something whether we like it or not."
"For better and worse," Lindsay said with a lopsided smile. I did the same, thinking of how different I might be in the next year and a half. I could be more helpful and avoid the situations that put so much stress on me. I could work on my voice and get into the better school choir, get some piano lessons, build my guard up against the guy I hate to crush on (come on, we all have 'em…)… It was so much.
So much change.
"Change… isn't always bad, darling…"I smiled as a lowered my head and thought back to that conversation I had with Jack in the church. I absentmindedly reached for my upper chest to toy with my wooden tooth and it's black cord, and after my mind told me not to be silly that it couldn't possibly be there, it was proven wrong.
My wooden tooth was still around my neck.
My mouth dropped open slightly a moment as I clutched it tightly, squeezing it for a reality check. I started to breathe faster and looked up at Lindsay.
"Lindsay."
"What?" she asked quietly.
I smiled slowly and held out my tooth, but she could barely make out what I was doing. "Check your neck," I said weakly as I still couldn't fathom this yet myself.
Lindsay patted around her neck quickly a few times before stopping with the same surprised face I wore. She pulled a silver chain out of her pajama shirt and with it came Elizabeth's silver locket. I sat up with a bewildered smile, not believing all of this. Lindsay looked from it to me, and the two of us began laughing.
"You have your tooth?" she asked.
I nodded. "Sure do."
Lindsay fell back against her branch. "Then it really did happen," she said. "All of it. We aren't just dreaming."
"Lindsay, nobody dreams in that much clarity or detail," I said.
"I know, but it was my first thought," she said. "What else could I think? But now this proves it. We did meet them and live the past year and a half. Hell, Erica… we went to the seventeenth century Caribbean and were pirates!"
"Oh my god we were…" I said breathlessly. I stared at her. "This is too much!"
"I know!" she said. "But it's all the comfort we'll ever need, these little pendants. They keep us… in touch with our inner pirate." I smiled t her. I truly, deeply, love my friends. They are so awesome sometimes.
"And our outer one, too," I said. "Don't forget about him."
"Course not!" Lindsay said as we laughed. When we fell silent, I cleared my throat some as the nighttime bugs and bats made their music.
"Want to head back now?" I asked. "Your grandma will be there soon."
"Yeah, okay," Lindsay, said. So solemnly we descended from the tree and stared at it again for a minute. Lindsay noticed that our X made from silly string wasn't there.
"And it won't be for another six months," I added.
"Well then we'll cure that tomorrow," she said as we turned to go. "See ya, Tree." She saluted it, and we turned around and began walking slowly back across the playground to the back hill, the shortest way to get back to her grandma's.
"You know, I don't know what to think," Lindsay said as we tromped across the small, dark softball field. "Wouldn't everyone who met the pirates remember everything? How come it'd just be me and you, or Stewie, too?"
"Well, the three of us are Littles," I said.
"But then wouldn't Paige remember, too?"
My face fell. "I don't know… if she does, I wonder if that'll mess up anything with Becca back in the Caribbean?"
"Oh my god, that's right!" Lindsay said, spinning to a stop. "Things could go totally wrong and Jack could get killed and-!"
"Breathe!" I shouted. "Don't go thinking all of that. It doesn't matter now anyways, we're never going to see any of them again, so let's just go home and do what most people would kill to," I said quietly.
"What?"
"Get a second chance."
- Back at Lindsay's Grandma's – 9:59 PM -
We sat down on the air mattress as her grandma pulled into the driveway. Lindsay picked up the Pirates of the Caribbean DVD case and looked at it. I had a feeling she didn't really want to watch it. Deep down, my feelings were the same. It would just be depressing.
When her grandma came up on the deck to the sliding glass door in front of us and opened the door, we looked up with calm, ordinary expressions. Her grandma's smile faded a little.
"Well what the matter with you two?" she asked. "Getting tired all ready?"
"No, just deciding what to do next," Lindsay said leaving the double meaning open. She looked away from her grandma, and I did, too.
"So, Lindsay, you'll be going to Erica's for the next month, right?" she asked.
"All of July, yep," Lindsay confirmed.
"And when are you leaving here?"
"Before dinnertime tomorrow sometime."
"Alright. Just make sure I have a phone number to reach you at if I have to, and don't forget anything."
"I won't."
Lindsay's grandma left the room with a nod as she went through the kitchen to her bedroom on the other end of the house. Lindsay and I looked at each other sullenly with our eyes and bodies more tired than we had yet come to realize. It would hit us sometime soon, though, we figured.
"Do you want to watch it?" I ventured, looking at the DVD. Lindsay held it with both of her hands a moment before shaking her head.
"Not really," she said. I nodded in silence.
"So what do you want to do?"
"I dunno. What can we do?"
"Cards?"
"Ha! Royal flush! Beat that!" Lindsay said triumphantly as she laid her cards on the table. Jack leaned back into the seat, and gave a disappointed smile.
"Ah, ye' win," Jack said, "Beginner's luck."
Lindsay quickly shook her head. "No," she said. "Not now."
I nodded again. "Pizza?" I tried. "Maybe some food would-"
"Who's up for pizza?" Shouts rang out around the living room.
"Pepperoni!"
"Uh... what's a pizza?"
"Can we get more rum in here?"
"No, no," Lindsay said again.
"Okay… how about we pack some of your things for a bit? You still haven't yet… and we can listen to some music or something while we do it."
Lindsay didn't shake her head this time. Instead, she gave a lopsided expression and a sigh. "Sure, I guess," she said. "Let's go."
We got up and went inside Lindsay's room. I went over to her old CD player on the dresser and saw the old case of CDs lying there right next to it. I was trembling; this wasn't right. I dismissed my feelings for the umpteenth time however and looked inside the CD case as Lindsay got a huge duffle bag out from underneath her bed. I opened it and flipped passed a few burned CDs and the Good Charlotte one her brother would be smashing here in about a month because he threw it at a wall or something…
Then I stopped.
I saw the Linkin Park CDs.
Memories flooded back into the walls of my mind. I didn't like it one bit, but they came. They were crystal clear.
"Where did you get cymbals?"
"Weird group of men in the next room," Will said. "Very odd drums and junk…"
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
"Who's there?" Jessica asked with her ear to the door.
"Uh... we lost some cymbals and wanted to know if you'd seen them or not," a voice said. A familiar voice... "You might know us – Chester, Rob, and Mike? We're from this band called Linkin Park, and –"
"Where's Hol- LINKIN PARK!"
CRASH
I swallowed a lump in my throat and closed my eyes. I could envision myself standing right in that hotel room again. Then I opened my eyes again after reliving fantasy for a moment and decided that maybe this was not the best thing to play right now. It may have been one of our favorite bands at the time, but I put a burned CD in the CD player instead as I went over to Lindsay to help her pack some more.
After ten minutes, Lindsay' grandma came into the room ready to go to work at the hospital. We looked up only for a second before folding the last of her clothes and placing them in the bag.
"Oh, packing, huh?" she asked.
"Yeah," Lindsay replied quietly. I sighed. Normally, Lindsay would've said something like 'No, we're doing the Macarena backwards in Polish just for the heck of it.' I knew I'd get the old Lindsay back after this trauma passed, but I wish I knew when.
"All right. Well, get to bed at a decent hour and have fun," her grandma said, putting her hand on the doorknob. "You left the phone number for me?"
"Out on the phone list on the fridge," she replied. "I put it there forever ago."
"Okay. I'll be calling."
"Alright."
"Bye, girls."
"Bye," we chorused as her grandma waved to us before leaving the room. We heard her leave through the glass door in the living room and then began packing things like CDs and books and bathroom things for her. We worked mostly in silence, wheels turning in our head of contemplation and confusion and wonder.
Things could not possibly be this way even if they are.
They just couldn't be.
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A transitional chapter, but the next part is the most transitional. You guys just might get lucky with another chapter, but if not, there's always an epilogue. I guess you'll find out in the next update if it's the last or second to last. Regardless, you were all so awesome! Stick around! BTW, 'I Love This Song' will be updated shortly, too. Look for that.
Please Review!