Chapter 3: Meg for a Little While

It had been a fairly long and tiresome three months for Christina. Moving away from the only place she'd known as home for eighteen years plus settling into a hectic college schedule left her with little to no time for herself, though she had still managed to make a few new friends.

After taking a shower to remove that day's sweat and grime, she collapsed on her bed and let out a heavy sigh. Her dorm-mate was gone for the weekend, leaving her alone with her thoughts as she thought about the stories her mother told her about her own early college years... what to expect, some of her (somewhat embarrassing) mishaps and that it was ultimately all worth it. While she loved her dad and brother, Christina was very close to her mother Meg, because she made sure to give her children the love and support that she never had growing up. While Peter and Lois did love Meg, they sure as hell had a hard time showing it until later in their lives, a fact that Christina thought was very sad.

She remembered the night of her friend Jessica's party, not long after she'd turned seventeen. Christina had gone to several before and nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to her, but that night was an exception.

It was the night she'd lost her virginity.

It had happened so fast, she'd headed into a bedroom with a boy she barely knew by the name of Ben and they were kissing and then on the bed and a few minutes later it was over. The only consolation was that he'd been a virgin as well with how quickly he'd finished, she'd assumed. That or he was just bad. She'd gotten dressed and made an excuse to leave the party and drove home, flushed both with embarrassment and a little bit of shame. She wasn't ready for that, not yet, but it happened and part of her also felt like she'd suddenly grown up. Since then she'd done it a few more times with her then-boyfriend Josh in her senior year but that first time was by far the most awkward, not just to herself but also the conversations with her mother and the following Monday with her friends at school.

After she pulled in the driveway and (tried to) silently enter the house to go upstairs and take a shower, her mother was sitting on the couch watching TV and turned toward her. "You're back early," said Meg, who looked a bit closer at her daughter's face, "... is everything okay?"

Even though Christina never said it directly, Meg knew what had to have happened and didn't react with anger but instead with a tinge of disappointment with understanding. Christina sat down next to her mother.

"Well, I knew this day would come eventually. You... you used protection, right?"

"Of course, I'm not dumb. Do you want me to tell in detail how he tore open the condom wrapper and then took it out and rolled it down his d-"

Meg cut her off. "I didn't say you were, but... but you have to be careful, sweetie. Oh god, now I know how mom must've felt talking about sex to me... it seems like yesterday that you were only a few years old and running around with teddy bears and eating chocolate mint ice cream and now this. I... I can't be mad at you Christina, given the stuff I did when I was young (and still do, Meg thought with a slight grin, with her husband still able to make her see Jimmy Connors two to three times weekly), but be careful. You have your whole life ahead of you! I... I wasn't as careful as I should've been around your age and nearly got pregnant a few times. It wasn't until I was married and settled down with your dad that I seriously thought about having a baby."

"What... what are you going to say to dad?"

"What your dad doesn't know won't hurt him," said Meg, "and I think this should be kept between us."

Silence reigned in the room for about a minute.

"So, what was it like?"

"Mom!"

"Okay, okay... sometimes I forget I'm forty-two and not eighteen anymore. Heading to the shower, right? I know that look and walk because I've done it plenty of times before. Night, sweetie, we'll talk more about this in the morning but for now I'm waiting for your dad to get home."

Christina realized that her mother was wearing a robe, very likely with nothing on underneath. She shuddered a little as she walked up the stairs. As she'd grown older and stayed up later at night she learned the cruel horror that the walls weren't as thick as they should have been.

"I'll put the earplugs in."

"What?"

"Night, mom!"

And indeed, they had talked more the next day and both even cried a little. Meg in particular was saddened at just how quickly the years flew by... just how quickly her daughter had grown in front of her eyes. Christina loved her mom more than anyone, but aside from a few stories she never really knew what her life was like when she was younger. Christina had only been to Quahog somewhat infrequently in her life, most recently having taken a short trip there with her mother, and wasn't particularly close to much of her extended family aside from Stewie who also no longer lived in Quahog. As she drifted off to sleep, one thought kept repeating itself again and again in her mind:

I wish I knew what it was like for mom, even just for a little while.

An alarm clock woke Christina from her sleep, but as she opened her eyes and blinked a few times (and realized that she'd kept her glasses on, she must have been really tired) she also realized that something was wrong. More than something, everything.

The alarm sounded different from her usual clock.

The clock itself was different.

The room itself was different.

She tried not to panic as she turned the alarm off and looked around. It was obvious that she was at her grandpa Peter's house, in her mother's old room. It looked similar to when she'd last been there, but with some added pictures on the wall, magazines and makeup on the dresser and inexplicably a microwave complete with popcorn and other microwavable food aside it. Next to her bed was a phone, but it clearly wasn't hers... it was far too old tech, plus after she turned it on it clearly had someone else's name.

Meg Griffin.

But that wasn't the only thing that shocked her, she also noticed the date and it was over twenty-five years ago.

"Oh my god, what..."

A knock on the door made her jump. "Meg,", a nasally voice said, "you'll be late for breakfast! Get moving or all that'll be left is Cap'n Crunch!"

Christina recognized her grandmother Lois's voice. It was hard not to, she was sure that her grandmother could break glass with it if she tried, but what she'd picked up on was that she called her Meg.

"I just... I just slept in a little, gra- mom, be down in a few minutes!"

She heard no reply, Lois had already gone downstairs.

Meanwhile, Christina got out of bed to look in the mirror. She was still wearing the same clothes she had the night previously in her dorm, so she hadn't Freaky Friday swapped with her mother in the past as she theorized. She couldn't go downstairs as herself, because there'd be too many questions asked (especially since there was no sign of Meg, Christina had woken up in her bed) and she'd be risking her own existence. If even one thing changed too much then her mother would never meet her dad after she'd finished college, and Christina would never be born.

The thought of that made her hyperventilate, but she calmed herself down enough to try and get dressed.

She opened up the drawers and noticed that a majority of her mother's clothes were exactly the same. While Christina herself had several identical hats, shirts and pants Meg had about ten times that, and about a dozen pairs of the same shoes. When her mother had said numerous times that Quahog was weird she'd always thought that it only applied to the rest of her family, but it was clear that Meg herself was just as weird before she'd moved away.

Christina stripped down to her underwear and reached into the drawers for a hat, shirt and pants. She'd pulled out the first two but while she was getting the third her hand grasped something that was most definitely not a pair of pants, underneath them at the bottom of the drawer. It felt like plastic, rather long and she felt a button and pushed it, which made a hum and the drawer rattle as she held it down. Realizing what it was, she withdrew her hand.

"EEEEWWWWWW!"

Not wanting to dwell on that for another moment, she quickly finished getting dressed and headed into the bathroom. After she'd finished washing up (she'd scrubbed her right hand for a good minute or two) she took a good look in the mirror... she'd seen older pictures of her mother in her youth but she looked almost exactly the same, aside from a small freckle on the tip of her nose that wasn't very noticeable unless you looked really closely or already knew it was there. She also remembered that the night before she wished that she knew what life was like for her mother for a little while.

"Oh crap."

After a few minutes of planning what to do, Christina finally decided to go downstairs to eat breakfast. Her grandparents and two uncles were both there, along with someone that she'd only seen once and barely remembered, the dog Brian. She pinched herself a few times to make sure it wasn't just a dream, before she felt another pinch that really hurt.

"Let's all pinch Meg!" said Peter.

Everyone pinched Christina a few times each before settling back down at the table. "Ow, what was that for?"

"New rule, whoever's last at the table for breakfast in the morning gets pinched. Just started today. Literally started a minute ago. It's a new tradition." said Peter. "Why are you late anyway, usually you're the first one here!"

"Had a bad dream that I woke up twenty-five years in the past with people I barely know." she said, stirring around her cereal. She took a bite of it and predictably tore open the roof of her mouth.

"Cap'n Crunch strikes again." said what sounded like Stewie, but obviously much younger.

"I don't know how that cereal's never been recalled." said another that she didn't recognize. Brian. "I'd swear it was some torture device invented in the 1700's that was banned for being too inhumane."

Suddenly, Christina's whole world changed. She was watching from the crowd at an execution site, with the executioner and the condemned man talking.

"Guillotine, hanging or Cap'n Crunch?" said the executioner, holding out a bowl of the cereal towards him.

"Oh god no, please no anything but Cap'n Crunch! Just hang me and chop my head off at the same time and be done with it!"

And with that, everything snapped back to the kitchen. Christina had only heard about that phenomenon from stories her mother told but until then had never experienced it for herself.

A cutaway.

"What... what was that?" she asked.

Everyone else in the room stared at her in disbelief.

"Late for breakfast and forgetting what cutaways are? Are you sure you're alright, Meg?" asked Lois.

"No, I... I think I don't feel so good, mom." And that was true, Christina was being overwhelmed and felt like the room had started spinning. It was a nightmare, she might never see her family and friends again or cease to exist, or worse she might end up being stuck pretending to be her mother forever. As much as she loved her and was a lot like her both in looks and personality, she still wasn't her and didn't want to be her. Why had she made such a stupid wish?

As she hit the floor, Peter tried to time his fart in an attempt to hide it. He didn't succeed. Everyone else in the room stared at him in disbelief.

"What?"

Christina woke up feeling refreshed. That had been quite a nightmare and she was ready to just forget it and move on with her weekend. She yawned and tried to get up, only to find that she was strapped down to the bed.

Upon closer examination she found that she was still in her mother's old room, and she was not alone. Her uncle Stewie and Brian were both standing off to her left, with the former holding what looked like some kind of gun on her.

"... think she's awake." said Brian.

Stewie hopped up on the bed next to her and stood only a few inches from her head. "Think you could fool us all, did you? I know my sister and you're not her. She'd never eat Cap'n Crunch, never! Oh that and the freckle and your DNA doesn't match and you were acting all weird but come on, Cap'n Crunch?"

There was no point keeping anything secret from them. She was a bit worried that Stewie would shoot her, however, if she said or did the wrong things. "Can you untie me? I won't hurt you and I'll explain everything, I promise!"

"Even though that's like what every bad guy ever says before they try and kill you, sure why not." said Stewie.

Christina sat up on the bed and stretched a bit, before looking at Brian.

"Brian, I've always wanted to meet you. Heard a lot about you but I never really got the chance, except for that one time when I was only a few months old. Can I... can I pat your head?"

"What?"

"Can I pat your head? That's the only memory I have of you, I reached out and pat your head and you smiled back at me. Oh wait, I should've said that I'm from the future first because now that all looks really weird."

"You can't be Meg from the future! She'd be a lot older than you!"

"Brian..." said Stewie.

"And I wasn't even born when Meg was a baby!"

"Brian..." said Stewie.

"And your DNA doesn't match!"

"Brian..." said Stewie.

"What?" replied Brian.

"You'd think with all the time-travel and inter-dimensional adventures we'd been on that you'd get what she's saying."

"That she's from the future, saw me when she was a baby and her DNA doesn't match Meg's?"

"All true, but I just did another scan and half of her DNA indeed comes from Meg. This is... oh I don't think you've told us your name."

"Christina." she said.

"Christina. She's Meg's daughter." said Stewie.

"And I have no idea where mom of this time is, but I know that I didn't replace her because I still have the clothes I woke up in." Christina said, and pulled them out from under the mattress.

"Ew, light blue hat and white shirt? You really have no taste!"

"Look, I... I don't know how this happened. I was thinking about mom and what it was like for her growing up here and I wished for it as I was falling asleep."

"Oh..." both Brian and Stewie hissed.

"Yeah you should never do that. That's like how 90% of fan fiction stories start." said Brian. "And usually not very good ones."

Christina, meanwhile, started to tear up. "I just want to go home! Back to my own life and not mom's!"

"I don't think anyone would want to be Meg longer than they should be." said Stewie.

"That's my mom you're talking about! There's nothing wrong with her!"

"Maybe not in your time, Christina. But Meg is... I don't really know how to describe it without offending you. It's like there's something missing and she keeps trying to fill it with anything she can. But if it's any consolation it looks like she eventually will get better. I mean, she had you and you don't seem quite as manic as she was at your age, so she did something right." said Brian.

Christina smiled. "That actually was still a bit offensive, but thanks."

"Should probably get you back home as soon as possible, kid." said Stewie. "The longer you stay the more you risk erasing yourself from existence."

"Kid? I'm like seventeen years older than you."

"And I'm still your uncle. Listen to your uncle Stewie. I'm your favorite uncle, right?"

"Oh yeah, uncle Chris is just... I don't know. Not the good type of uncle. No, not in an incestuous sexual way but he and mom aren't that close and I think it affects how he treats me and my brother. They both have their own lives and just naturally drifted apart over the years, I guess. You're great though. You always used to let me play with the Cotton Candy-Making Robots any time I came over to your place."

"Cotton Candy-Making Robots?" asked Stewie. "Better add that to the list of stuff I'll make in twenty-plus years. Cotton Candy-Making Robots though..."

Stewie drifted off for a few minutes, daydreaming and at times laughing throughout.

"Is he always like this?" asked Christina.

"Yes." said Brian.

Christina got off the bed and sat on the floor next to Brian. "Now that he's off in, well... wherever he is, I'd like to talk to you for a little bit."

"About what?"

"I'm glad that I got to meet you, really meet you even if it's only just this once. Mom told me how hard it really hit your family after you died, especially Stewie. He told me that you were like the brother he never had."

"He has Chris."

"Yeah, but Chris was never as close to him as you were. Just promise me that you'll try and prepare Stewie as best you can and enjoy all the years you have left. I... I probably shouldn't be telling you this but after you died Quahog refused to let you be buried in the cemetery because you were a dog, and that pissed everyone in the family off. They tried to fight it but they lost, but to stick it to everyone Stewie built this massive tomb and statue that took up like half the space of the pet cemetery to make sure that you were never forgotten by anyone."

Brian was stunned. "He... he did that for me?"

"Yeah."

Stewie snapped back to reality and turned towards the pair. "I think it's time you get going, just come over to my room. Shouldn't take too long since you're directly from the future and not an alternate timeline."

Brian looked back at Stewie and smiled. Thank you for being a friend...

"Brian, Stewie! Golden Girls is on!" yelled Peter from downstairs as the theme song began playing.

"Oh, don't want to miss this one!" said Stewie. "It's the one where Blanche thinks her husband faked his death and is really sad at the end because he didn't and it was all a dream."

"Way to spoil it." said Brian.

"You've watched it like ten times and it's been out for over thirty years, get over it."

A minute later in Stewie's room, Stewie had already placed a transportation pad on the floor and motioned for Christina to stand on it. "Just stand there and you'll be taken back right to the moment you left, nobody will have ever noticed you were gone."

Christina stood on the pad and glanced towards them. "Well, bye guys, it was nice to-"

And with a flash of blue light, she was gone.

"You know, you could've waited until she was finished speaking." said Brian.

"What, and miss the first few minutes of the episode? Without it the rest of the episode will make no sense!"

"It's a dream episode, none of it makes any sense besides the end. But good point, let's get downstairs."

Brian and Stewie headed down and sat on the floor in front of the couch, while Peter, Lois and Chris were already sitting on it. Just before the commercial break was over, the front door burst open from a very angry Meg.

"You forgot about me and left me at that damn corn maze by the farmer's market and I spent all night walking and hitchhiking to get home! Over a hundred miles!"

"Shhhh, Golden Girls is on!" said Peter.

"Ugh!" yelled Meg, who ran past them upstairs to her room and slammed the door shut.

"Peter, if Meg was gone all day yesterday and most of today, then who the hell was that this morning?" asked Lois.

"I dunno, ask Meg."

Brian and Stewie glanced at each other knowingly. Just over seven years later, when Meg and her husband brought a baby Christina to see her grandparents, the girl reached a tiny hand out to touch an old, tired but still alert Brian. He remembered the brief time that her older self had visited and she'd never got to pat his head like she asked, and moved his head closer so she could reach.

She'd giggled, and he smiled.

Back in the present, Christina found herself back in her dorm room bed, not entirely sure if what she'd experienced had been just a dream. There was one way she could be sure, though.

She called Stewie, who confirmed it, as well as saying that he was working on the Cotton Candy-Making Robot Mark II. While she had not exactly lived life as her mother for very long, she did get to meet Brian and a younger Stewie, experience a (fairly mild, thankfully) idiotic move from Peter and the rest of the family, and also a cutaway. She respected her mother even more because she'd gone through that not just for a few hours, but eighteen years of her life, and managed to still end up relatively normal and raise a family.

It was late, but Christina wanted to do one last thing before heading off to sleep after what had been the weirdest day of her life. She called her mother, who was likely sleeping at that time due to the time difference, but she needed to talk to her. After about four or five rings, she picked up.

"Christina? It's like one in the morning here!" said Meg, who let out a big yawn.

Stewie had also given her the details of what happened shortly after she'd left. "Remember the day that you had to walk a hundred miles to get home after grandpa and grandma forgot you? Well..."

"Which day? Because there was more than one. And never forget your phone sweetie, that used to be a bad habit of mine."

"The corn maze."

"Which corn maze?"

"The one by the farmer's market. And don't say which farmer's market or I think I'll scream, mom."

"Oh, that. What about it?"

Christina took a deep breath, knowing that she was about to be in for a long night.

"Mom... you won't believe the day I had."