Magnetic Forces of Love and Conspiracy

Written by BansheeGirl

A/N: Alas, I have finally finished my Year 12 exams and so now I have all the time in the world to work on this fic! Yay! I'm trying to make chapters shorter so that I update more frequently. There's still so much to go, so I hope you're in for the long haul!

One of my reviewers (thanks Eevee!) has pointed out that I have far too many names to remember in this fic, and what really brought this home to me was the fact that I realised I have been calling James' best friend 'Michael' for the past few chapters, when his name is really 'Sam'! What makes things even more blunderous is the fact that Jessie's assistant's name is 'Michael', so I apologise for any amount of confusion that undoubtedly arose from this! So just for the record, James' best friend Sam, and Jessie's assistant Michael. I'll continue to work on not bringing in too many new characters, because things are even getting confusing for me!

As always, please leave your comments after you've finished reading this chapter so I know what to keep the same and what to improve on! Thanks!

Disclaimer: See chapter 1 or 2!

Magnetic Forces of Love and Conspiracy

Chapter 12: Awakened to Nightmares

When Jessica Avalon awoke the next morning, two realisations immediately struck her as she blinked her eyelids several times in order to focus her vision. For one, she was lying in a bed in a room that she had never seen before, and she had absolutely no idea how she had gotten there. Secondly, her head was throbbing so painfully that Jessie quickly lifted her hand to her forehead just to make sure there wasn't an axe wedged in her skull or something equally as disastrous.

With an impending sense of panic, Jessie quickly sat up. With this, however, a painful groan leapt from the crimson-haired woman's lips as her throbbing head appeared to severely disagree with the force of up sitting up so rapidly. Jessie clenched her eyes shut and gripped her head tightly until the pain in her head abated to its regular, dull pound. Gently, she opened her deep blue eyes again and surveyed the room she was in.

It was a small, modest room. None of the furniture nor simple decorations seemed to tell Jessie anything about where she was, and her head hurt too much to try and remember anything that had happened before waking up that morning. Very slowly, so as not to upset her throbbing head again, Jessie climbed out of bed and set her feet on what she surprisingly found were very cold floorboards. It was then that she looked down and realised that she had not only woken up in a place she had never seen before, but she had woken up in clothes she had never seen before. Falling down to her ankles was a simple, pale-blue nightdress, and Jessie felt another surge of apprehension at the predicament she had found herself in.

Who has brought me here? Who has changed my clothes?

Jessie carefully crept over to a window to the left of the bed, peering out before shortly gasping. She was clearly on at least the second floor of a building, but everything as far as the eye could see was blanketed in a pristine layer of blindingly white snow. It appeared as though she was in some sort of a village, and every house and similar construction was layered in snow. Not so far away, it seemed, enormous mountains loomed, themselves almost completely covered white. At the sight of her environs, a trace of memory niggled away at the back of Jessie's mind, and yet the pain in her head still prevented her from grasping it.

Turning away from the window, Jessie slowly made her way over to a small mirror that sat upright on top of a chest of drawers beside the room's only door. Another gasp caught in Jessie's throat as her eyes glimpsed her own reflection; a nasty gash made its way diagonally across the left side of Jessie's forehead, and the bridge of her nose was slightly swollen so that faint purple bruises spread out beneath both of her eyes. She delicately traced her fingers across her battered face, Jessie becoming increasingly distressed at how her immaculate features had become so marred.

At the sound of the door swinging open beside her, Jessie quickly turned to see an elderly woman enter the room.

"You're awake," The woman said simply, as she turned to find her guest out of bed. She took a moment to eye Jessie with a reserved expression, whilst Jessie stood and said nothing.

"Ah," Jessie finally began, when the woman did not speak again. She massaged her right temple as the throbbing in her head continued to pulsate, and went on, "I'd rather appreciate it if someone told me exactly what's going on? I've got a headache the size of a Snorlax and I have absolutely no idea where I am."

The woman smiled, though Jessie could not determine as to whether it was friendly or not. "You are currently in the Fieldsville Lodging House. You've been asleep here since last night when two local villagers rescued you from a helicopter wreckage some miles into the mountains," the woman said calmly.

Jessie blinked, taking a moment to respond to this statement. Fieldsville? Helicopter? Suddenly memories of the past twenty-four hours came flooding back into Jessie's consciousness, and with this a surge of pain shot through Jessie's head so nauseating that she swayed rather alarmingly on the spot. Reflexively the older woman sprang forwards to steady Jessie, and she led the crimson-haired girl to sit back on the edge of her bed.

Jessie ignored the other woman for a moment as her head spun with recollections of the previous day and its events. Her plans to destroyFieldsville in six months time; the surveying expedition to the mountain village; Brendan and Bella, from Paramount Corps.' tourism division; and finally, the horrifying moments when the helicopter went down. As her thoughts eventually calmed, Jessie suddenly settled upon one important thing: she needed to get back to Saunders City.

"I need to go. Now. Back to Saunders City," Jessie stated, staring directly at the elderly woman beside her. The woman's eyes narrowed sceptically, and Jessie felt slightly disturbed when the woman did not answer her. "Do you understand me? I need to get back!" Jessie reiterated forcefully.

"I'm afraid that is going to be quite difficult at the moment. We had a terrible blizzard last night that damaged both of the village helicopters, and the path through the mountains won't be usable for at least another few days," the woman finally responded.

"What?" Jessie cried, unbelievingly. She massaged her temples with the tips of her fingers again, and tried to repress her feelings of anger, as they only seemed to make the pain in her head worse. "Then I need a phone. Where can I use a phone?"

"Unfortunately the blizzard also cut off our telephone connection last night. It probably won't be functioning again before the end of the week, I'm sorry." The woman smiled in an ironically sympathetic way. "And seeing as you don't appear to be interested in asking who I am, my name is Mary, for reference. I own this Lodging House with my husband."

Jessie frowned. "Right… Mary," she began, an irrepressible expression of incredulity displaying itself on her face. "Your phone line was cut off? How?"

"We don't receive much funding from the Saunders City council to spend on improving infrastructure and services around here. Our phone line running to the City hasn't been built with the proper protective materials, so it often gets damaged by storms and such. You see, the Saunders City council doesn't appear to hold us in much favour… in fact they've agreed to let some big company bulldoze down this whole place in a few months' time…" Mary said, looking down her nose with her eyebrows raised accusingly.

Jessie's heart skipped a beat. The woman obviously knew who Jessie was. But how had she found out? Jessie realised she must have appeared taken aback at Mary's comment, because the older woman chuckled knowingly.

"Unfortunately for you one of our permanent residents here happens to know exactly who you are, and was kind enough as to alert us of your identity. So don't be surprised if you find some of our other permanent residents here rather… unwelcoming of your presence," she said.

A wave of dread threatened to wash over Jessie. "One of your permanent residents… James? James is here?"

Mary nodded, and the wave immediately crashed down upon the younger girl. She had hoped that her association with her former Team Rocket partner would be rather limited after her meeting with him the previous week, but it appeared that this would not be so. She felt her insides tighten at the thought of having to go through more emotional turmoil with James again…

"So what the hell am I supposed to do? Just sit here for the next week until your crappy phone lines are fixed? Isn't there anyone here who can mend your helicopters?" Jessie cried, desperately trying to find a way out of the predicament she had found herself in.

For the first time an unambiguously stern look morphed itself on Mary's face. "You should maintain a less scornful tone with me, Miss. Avalon. Just remember that we are the ones extending you our hospitality here. That's far more than you're doing for us. Remember?"

Jessie opened her mouth to retaliate, but something in the older woman's piercing glare made Jessie quickly shut it and lower her gaze in concession. The pair of women remained silent for a few icy moments.

"I'll get you some breakfast from downstairs," Mary finally said, the sternness in her voice having disappeared from before. "After that you can have a nice warm bath, and then Olivia – she's a nurse – will give you another check-over, just to see how all of your injuries are mending."

Mary rose from the bed and had exited the room before Jessie could reply. The sapphire-eyed girl remained seated on the bed, her head throbbing even worse than before at the additional burden of remembering what had happened, discovering where she was and exactly who else was here with her. Her mind also spun with confusion at the character of Mary. It was funny – Jessie had stood up to the most important and prominent figures in elite Saunders City society, and yet she had just conceded to the glare of insignificant old woman.

Jessie suddenly realised that she was actually very hungry, and was glad for the fact that Mary had gone to fetch her something to eat. She gently pushed herself up from the bed, and wandered over to the window to stare out at the snowy village below her. After a few quiet minutes of unfruitful distressing over how to escape this situation, the sound of footsteps sounded at the bedroom door. Jessie spun around, fully expecting to see Mary carrying some much-needed breakfast. But standing in the doorway was not Mary. It was James. Jessie's stomach sunk. As James advanced into the room her facial features immediately stiffened into a cold expression of loathing.

Jessie prayed that Mary would also think to bring her up some Aspirin as well.

Woo! Chapter 12 in the bag. I won't respond individually to everyone who reviewed the last chapter (because it was so long ago!), so just a great big general thanks to all the wonderful people who did review!

Anyway, will definitely have the next chapter out very soon. See you all then!

BansheeGirl.