Hey! Sorry for such a long wait. I know you guys all probably hate me right now, especially since it's been MONTHS without a new chapter out and no warning of it going on any type of hiatus. School and life has just been way too hectic for me, but this story's been nagging at the back of my mind for AGES nonetheless. Hopefully I haven't lost my knack for writing fanfiction. And even though I'm not really into PotF itself anymore (too...many...reruns...watched...), the inspiration for fanfiction is definitely still there. There's no saying how long this story will take to make its full run, but I definitely will finish it even if it kills me. Seriously.
Rambling again...bad habit. Okay. Onto the next (long awaited) chapter!
Oh yeah...also, just a little side note – the parts in italics are flashbacks. I know this chapter is already confusing enough, so I just wanted to give you a heads up before you fry your brain out on this one.
It's All In the Timing
The Truth Really Hurts
It was impossible.
Even with the proof she'd been given, even with all the evidence placed directly in front of her eyes, she couldn't believe it.
She refused to believe it.
For one, it meant that everything she had ever categorized as "normal" was now completely, utterly messed up, while the things she had believed up until then were "ridiculous" turned out to be unexpectedly true...
Blend the two together in an already-overloaded human brain and you've got yourself the ultimate migraine.
Secondly, to make things that much worse, it meant that everything that had happened throughout the past year with Keely had just been a complete misunderstanding, one that she now had no one to place the blame on except for time itself. And if that were the case, wasn't time the cause for practically everything anyway?
She placed a hand gingerly to her temple with a soft, agitated groan, leaning heavily against the lockers behind her. What was she supposed to do now? With Phil suddenly appearing out of the blue again after so long and her mind reeling into overdrive, how in the world was she supposed to keep such an enormous secret from K---
"Via?"
Nearly falling over from the sudden shock, Via's head snapped up as she took in her best friend's figure with a sharp intake of breath.
"K-Keely!" She stuttered in an unnatural pitch, failing to keep a normal, cheerful tone in her voice entirely. She mentally whacked herself in the head as the blonde in front of her arched her eyebrows in suspicion, amusement...and something else.
"I'm sorry, you just...scared me, that's all," Via tried again shakily, attempting to wave it off with her hand and quickly changing the subject. "Anyhow...what's the matter?"
Keely held onto her gaze a bit longer before shaking it off, a serious expression taking over almost immediately. "Look, V...I really need to talk to you. And I know we promised to never bother about it again, but this time...it's really important."
Via's stomach churned at her words, already knowing what was coming.
"I know...that I have all the reasons in the world to call myself delusional at this point," Keely began quietly, leaning against the lockers next to the brunette with slumped shoulders. "I mean, it's not like it hasn't happened before." She stifled a short laugh, shutting her eyes momentarily as a hint of what looked like pain shot through her features. But as soon as it had come, it was gone.
With a swift exhale of breath, Keely pushed herself up and turned to Via. "But this time, I swear I heard..." Her voice faltered and her eyes closed again, and she quickly skipped to her next sentence before she lost her nerve altogether.
"Look, all I know is that when I turned around, Via, I thought I saw you...dragging...someone away."
She didn't even have to finish the thought before Via dropped her gaze from her friend's pleading eyes, unable to stand it. She knew what Keely was trying to say, and there was no possible way she'd be able to tell her the truth. But then again, wasn't she stuck either way? Telling the truth would only resurface the pain, and lying would only make things worse...
"Via?" Keely asked in a voice barely above a whisper, the anxiety flashing through her eyes as the British girl took a small step away from her. Her heart dropped with a sickening thump, practically inviting the inevitable through her front door at this point. "Via, please tell me it wasn't you I saw."
Taking a deep, shuddering breath and bracing herself for the worse (for the second time that day, she noted silently), Via finally raised her head and met Keely's fearful stare.
"I'm sorry, Keely. He's back."
- - - - -
"Phil. Phil!"
Via barely held her grasp on him as Phil's legs finally gave way, and the two teens slowing dropped to the ground with a soft thump. Gently pulling away, the brunette watched in utter confusion and concern as the boy in front of her dropped his head in his hands in dismay, a stream of panic-stricken words tumbling out of his mouth in a jumble she could barely comprehend.
"A year? An entire year? This can't be happening. We were supposed to come back to the day she was reading the results! Why...how did the time machine mess up again? At this rate, the entire time-space continuum will be permanently altered, and---ARGH, THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME!"
At this point Phil was pounding his fist into his forehead repeatedly, and in a frantic rush Via latched her hand onto his wrist to stop the self-abuse. "WHAT? Phil, just tell me, for goodness sake," She cried desperately, "What in the world is going on?"
Within a split second Phil's expression went from panic to a horrified dread as he realized just how much information he had spilled. Both hands fell to the floor beside him in defeat and, keeping his eyes averted, he slowly shook his head.
"I...I can't tell you that, Via. I really can't."
Narrowing her eyes in irritation, Via grasped him by the shoulders and forced him to look at her.
"Phil, I really don't have a clue to what is going through your mind at this moment," She said quietly, her voice carrying an unnatural impatience to it. Her eyes blazed with a fire he'd never seen before, causing him to automatically lock onto them with his own. "But at least let me tell you this---you have absolutely no idea what Keely went through when you disappeared."
She suddenly let out a weary sigh and released her grip from his shoulders, lifting herself off the floor. "Look. If coming back here means that you're attempting to fix what you did, if you actually want the chance to have my forgiveness and, even more so, Keely's as well...I suggest you tell me the truth." Folding her arms across her chest in determination, Via shot Phil that oh-so familiar piercing stare he had come to know so well.
"And I daresay I have more than the right to know right now."
- - - - -
The silence that followed Via's confession was almost unbearable.
In fact, the tension between the two girls was so blatantly obvious that the entire hallway of chattering students went quiet, some even turning their heads to stare in cautious curiosity.
What happened next, though, was so unexpected that it completely threw Via off her axis...quite literally.
Keely laughed.
The chortling sound that reached her ears caused Via to almost fall over in alarm and shock, and in a quick recovery she turned to stare at her best friend with wide, startled eyes.
'Ohmigod...' Her mouth dropped open in disbelief as Keely doubled over in a fit of giggles, the students around her shooting her strange looks before quickly continuing on their way.
'Has she gone completely insane?'
With her outburst of laughter finally dying down, Keely ran a hand through her silk blonde hair and flashed a smile at the shocked brunette standing before her.
"Sorry about that, V, I just...you seriously almost had me there for a sec!" She bent down and reached for her backpack, which had unnoticeably slipped off her shoulder sometime during the conversation. "Really, I must be delirious for ever thinking you'd do something like drag some random guy away like that..."
A hand flew to her forehead in exasperation as Via took in the meaning of Keely's words. "What? Keely, you can't possibly think that I'd lie about something like that! Now really isn't the time to be playing ignora---"
As if some force was working against her, the shrill ring of the bell cut Via off halfway through her sentence, breaking off Keely's attention as she glanced around in sudden realization.
"Wha---? Oh, shoot!" Whacking herself on the head in frustration, Keely hastily threw her backpack onto her shoulder and held her hands up in a quick apology, slowly backing away. "Via, I'm totally sorry, but I've gotta get to Philosophy class! Messershmicht'll definitely put me in after-school detention if I'm late one more time..."
Without even bothering to hear a response, she turned and dashed down the hall, already at the corner when Via finally demonstrated a proper reaction.
"N-no! Wait, you have to---Keely!" Dropping her arms to her sides in defeat, Via fell back against the lockers once more and slowly slid to the ground with her head in her hands, a distraught groan barely escaping her lips.
She didn't even bother to get up as the trill of the second bell echoed throughout the deserted hallways.
- - - - -
Via gave one of the biggest eye rolls of her life as Phil's shoulders sagged miserably just a few feet away.
"Phil, please. Do you seriously expect me to believe a far-fetched tale like that? This is barely the time for unnecessary jokes, I'm really not in the joking mode right now---"
"I'm not joking around!" Phil interrupted in dismay, throwing his hand out to emphasize how serious he was at the moment. "I'm telling the truth, I'm not from this century!" He paced frantically in front of the brunette, who only shook her head with a mixture of pity and irritancy. Attempting to reason with her, he spun around on his heel and began gesturing wildly with his hands, which only caused Via to arch an eyebrow in semi-amusement.
"Okay! Okay, okay. Look. Didn't you ever have that strange feeling that I didn't fit in here? Or..." He paused for a split second, trying to remember a specific event in time. "Like, during that one incident before the Girl's Choice Dance, remember? How I was supposed to move back to Kansas---" He rolled his eyes sarcastically at the lame attempt of an excuse--- "But then, for some unknown reason to you and everyone else, I suddenly didn't have to move anymore?"
Via's mouth opened to add in a quick retort, but she decided against it when she realized that Phil was actually right.
"See?" Phil insisted, pointing a finger at her in confidence despite the situation he was in. "Don't tell me that you've never once felt like something strange was going on with me---'
Via's eyes widened as another thought suddenly hit her. "Keely..." She interrupted quietly, which caused Phil to quickly snap his head up at the mention of a certain best friend. "W-what?"
"That time...with Keely..." She trailed off as she walked into her own memory, leaving Phil to stand there with a bewildered look on his face.
"Uh...Via---"
"That time," Via interrupted again, waving him off with a flick of her hand. "Wait, that time after I met you two, when Keely and I went to that Pickford Craft Fair and she disappeared...that was because of you, wasn't it?" She narrowed her eyes at Phil, who froze like a dear caught in headlights. "She knows about this too? She's a part of it, she actually believes it?"
Turning on her heel and shaking her head vigorously, Via threw her hands up in despair and stomped to the other side of the room with a laugh of pure disbelief. "No, no...This – this isn't possible, I mean, the chances of you being from the...the..."
She turned around to face him again and instantly trailed off, her eyes settling on a strange blue electronic device he now held firmly in his hands.
Phil stared at her intently, walking up to where she stood and holding the device in front of her face. "You said that you wanted to know the truth, Via, so I'll have to prove it to you." He cringed inwardly as he pressed a number of buttons on the device and pointed it directly at the wide-eyed brunette, knowing the consequences that would soon be in store.
"Man...Dad's gonna kill me for this."
Out of nowhere, a blinding light erupted from the contraption in his hand and engulfed Via in a shower of colors, successfully triggering a terrified gasp from her lips as she shielded her eyes. Phil flashed a smile of triumph as the light slowly faded and, pressing another button, materialized a large mirror in his opposite hand and held it out to her.
She froze in shock at what she saw.
"H-how..." Snatching the mirror out of Phil's hands, Via gawked at the glamorous dress that now clung gracefully to her body, at the hairstyle, the makeup, the shimmering, undoubtedly expensive jewelry---
Then dropped the mirror and quickly backed up against the classroom wall, her legs suddenly feeling extremely weak.
"It's called a Wizrd," Phil explained cautiously, making sure the brunette could hear every single word he was saying as he slowly made his way towards her. "It basically does anything you can possibly imagine, such as this---" He motioned at her new "costume", which was most likely capable of passing as a potential red-carpet outfit--- "And it's probably one of the most essential tools used in the 22nd century."
He pointed the Wizrd at Via again, and with another bright light she was back in her normal school clothes, her breath coming out in short, shaky puffs of air. Pointing the Wizrd at the shattered mirror on the ground and dematerializing that as well, it was now Phil's turn to give Via her own trademark stare.
"You believe me now, right?"
Via could only stare back in response, beginning to shake her head again in disbelief as she ran a trembling hand through her dark brown hair. Phil heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his own hair as well, causing it to stick out in all sorts of strange directions as he began pacing in front of her.
"Please, Via, you've got to understand. Our time machine broke down here while we were on vacation, we were only trying to fit in until my dad fixed our one way back home! And when he finally did, things went wrong again and it turned out like this..." Despite the tense situation he was in right now, Phil had to hold down the urge to grin as he glanced at the expression on Via's face...one that looked almost exactly like the expression Keely had had when he told her a similar story so long ago.
Via stood motionless for a good solid five seconds before giving any sort of reaction whatsoever. When her mouth finally showed signs of functioning, she gave a short, unnatural laugh, which caused Phil to stop his pacing and turn his head toward her in surprise.
"This really isn't a dream, is it?" She asked, slightly taken aback at the casualty in her voice. "I'm not delirious, and you're not just a figment of my overactive imagination?" She raised a weary hand to her temple and shook her head in disbelief. "This is...this is real."
The more she said it, the more she couldn't believe it.
But the more she couldn't believe it, the more she knew it was true...
Before Phil even had a chance to answer, though, the Wizrd went off in his hands, sending Via in the air with a startled jump and a small shriek. A hologram of Phil's father appeared above the blue gadget, which immediately went off in a ramble as Lloyd's voice echoed throughout the room.
"Phil, we've got a HUGE problem. This isn't the same day we left---and when I said the day we left, I mean the second time around, not the first---we came back a year later! So right now I---HOLY PICKLESNAPPERS!!!"
The holographic Lloyd caught sight of Via and immediately went into "PacMan-game-mode", which caused Phil to slap a hand to his face in embarrassment.
"Uh, Dad..." He began nervously as Via stared incredulously (and amusingly) at the mini Lloyd, who by now was marching back and forth with a loud "Waka waka waka waka waka..."
"Dad---she knows."
Instantly Lloyd dropped his arms and snapped his head around with wide eyes. "WHAT?"
"I'm sorry, Dad, it's a long story..." Phil scratched the back of his head with an apologetic grin before quickly changing the subject. "Anyway, is there anything else you wanted?"
Lloyd hesitated, glancing at Via nervously before speaking again. "Yes...uh, yes. We've got an urgent family meeting, Phil, your mother needs you to get back home A.S.A.P---" He was suddenly shoved out of the hologram as Pim stepped in his place with a roll of her eyes.
"You'd better hurry it up, Bro, I'm sure you'll be overjoyed once you hear the news." Her false happiness was cut short when she noticed Via as well. "Oh, hey, it's Little Miss Sunshine's shop-till-you-drop-a-holic British buddy. You hooked up with the tall idiot yet?"
Via gave a shocked gasp and shook her head furiously. "WHAT? NO!"
Pim gave a cackle before disappearing along with the hologram, and Phil quickly shoved the Wizrd in his pocket as he started towards the door.
"How in the world---wait, you're leaving?" Via shook Pim's last words out of her mind and chased after him as he yanked open the door, walking into the now empty hallway. "Phil, what do you expect me to do now after everything you've told me?"
"I'm sorry, Via, I'll be back, I promise!" Phil said with a wave, already pushing open the school doors. Within moments he was hopping down the steps two at a time, leaving Via to stare helplessly after him at the top of the staircase. "But---"
She suddenly glanced at her watch and swore under her breath, dashing back into the school to get to class before she got into even more trouble than she was already in.
It looked like she was going to have a long, long day.
- - - - -
Phil burst through the school doors a few minutes before the end of school, his eyes immediately settling on a certain blonde's best friend who was, for some reason, sitting on the ground with her back against the blue metal lockers and her head in her hands. Already aware of his presence, Via quickly pushed herself off the ground and hastily adjusted her hair and clothes as Phil made his way toward her with a perplexed look on his face.
"What...what are you doing here?" He asked in confusion, unintentionally cutting the British girl off just as she opened her mouth to speak. "Shouldn't you be in class right now? I'm surprised you didn't get cau---"
"Phil, you have got to go back and change all of this," Via interrupted in exasperation, grasping him by the shoulders as he stared at her with wide eyes. "I can't afford to let Keely see you now, you have to trust me on this!" She let him go and put a hand to her head in distress. "Can't you go back in your...time machine...and just fix everything to how it should be?"
At those words, though, Phil instantly dropped his gaze, which caused Via to pause halfway through her freaking-out stage to stare at him with a bubbling dread in the pit of her stomach.
"Oh no," She whispered with a soft moan, covering her eyes. "Don't tell me..."
Phil shifted from one foot to the other. "Yeah, about that..." He gulped nervously. "Our time machine sort of broke down for good. I'm basically stuck here for the rest of my life."
"And this time...for real."
The shrill ring of the final bell pierced through the deathly silence that had suddenly fallen over the two, and in mere seconds the hallway was a complete chaos as students began pouring out of their classrooms in a loud chatter.
"Oh God, this can't be happening," Via whispered fearfully, her eyes darting from student to student as Phil only became more frantic.
"Via, just how bad of a situation is this?" He asked in desperation, backing up against the lockers as his heart raced out of control. If Keely had liked him just as much as he loved her before his unexpected disappearance, what exactly would her reaction be if he suddenly showed up in front of her one year later?
"Ohmigod---Phil!"
He didn't have a chance to think about it, because at that moment Via grabbed him by the arm and yanked him towards her, eyes filled with sheer dread.
"We have to get out of here!" She gasped frantically, beginning to push him towards the door as she shot a quick glance behind her, the dread deepening even more. "Please, just hurry up before---"
"Yo, Via!"
They both froze in their tracks.
Too late.
Phil's eyes quickly flew shut, his teeth clenching in dismay as the familiar voice, now much nearer and louder than before, sounded again.
"Dude, where were you today, Via?" Owen asked with a cock of his head just as Via spun around to face him with a flustered look on her face. Before she had a chance to respond (though she had no intention of doing so anyway) his eyes lit up and he grinned devilishly. "Ooh, don't tell me you actually ditched! Whoa, this is like, totally gonna go down in history! I me---"
He stopped short, narrowing his eyes in confusion when he finally noticed the person hiding behind the brunette, his back against hers as he attempted to somehow disappear into thin air. For a moment Owen stood there as the realization registered in the back of his brain, and with a gentle push past Via he grabbed the boy's shoulder and slowly turned him around.
"Dude..." He whispered in complete shock.
"Phil?"
Just as the words left his mouth, though, the familiar thump of a bag hitting the ground caused him to look up over Phil's shoulder in bewilderment, searching for the source of the sound.
Within a split second, the color had completely drained from his face.
Phil quickly looked from Owen to Via and noticed that she had gone completely white as well, a trembling hand covering her mouth. Unable to take it any longer, he spun around...and instantly regretted it when he realized just who it was.
It only took his eyes a split second to take her in, but it was a lifetime before his mouth could even form a single word.
"...Keel..."
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A/N: Holy crap, guys. You seriously DO NOT know how hard it was for me to write this chapter. I didn't realize how difficult it would be for me to write everyone so OOC, so it literally took me AGES to get this update out. So yes, because of the OOC-ness, I'm not nearly as satisfied as I would like to be...but I hope you guys still liked it. Anyways, I promised myself I'd get it out by New Year's Day (and it is for me...1:21 in the morning! WHOO!), so...HAPPY NEW YEARS, EVERYONE! Hope you enjoyed the long chapter. Please still review! Believe it or not, reviews do keep me motivated...
Once again, thanks for tuning in even after such a long wait! You guys are the BEST!
-jaime-