I wonder if this is how Rocky got here.
Admittedly, Rocky, the one that I've taken possesion of, had his own excuse for getting here: he could teleport. As far as I can tell, I'm a complete null. Okay, either that or I'm too skeptical to be 'open' to psychic things.
Anyway, I'm standing in a living room. Greer's, to be exact. Greer's and Michael's. I wonder if Michael's aware of how I pronounce his name, an almost exotic way: Mi-khay-el. I wonder how I ended up pronouncing it that way.
Greer, Georgina Lewis, walks into the room, holding a cup of coffee, or is it cocoa? I don't know. Maybe a mocha. I can tell even without being psychic that my appearance is only slightly startling. Between Rocky and the newest additions to the Tomorrow People, she can only take things in stride. I wrote her that way, so I should know.
"Hello," she says, putting the cup she's carrying down on the table. "I haven't seen you before. You're new, huh?"
"Not really," I reply. "I'm not supposed to be here."
"Why?"
"I'm not from...here, you might say," I reply, trying to deflect any thoughts away from poor Melinda. "Wrong time, wrong universe."
"Dimensional traveller," she mumbles, but I hear her. "Do you remember how you got here?"
"Last I remember, I went to bed," I say. "This could still be a dream. Weird things happen in dreams."
"I know," she reply. "But to me, you're here. Don't worry, our last one disappeared without a hitch."
"I know," I reply, echoing her. "I couldn't very well leave Rocky in your universe."
That finally startles her. She may be used to people living for centuries, teleporting teens, and dimensional travellers, but I don't think she's ever met a deity. Or a misplaced writer, for that matter. "Huh?"
"Sit down and drink your whatever," I tell her gently. "You're going to need it. I don't think you've encountered the likes of me before."
She shakes her head as if to clear it, but sits down and stares at me. "So, what are *you*?" she asks finally.
"I'm a writer," I say, hoping to deflect some of her doubts. "I don't know why I'm here, but as long as I'm here, I guess I owe you an apology for what I've put you through."
"Put me through?" Greer echoes.
"Funny... I don't usually write you echoing everything people say," I reply, trying to get a reaction from her.
I do. "Why me?"
"Because you're interesting. And I guess you could say that we're both alike in quite a few ways. Not counting looks," I respond, aware of the physical differences. I think Kyrie once described Greer's look as "Farmgirl". You wouldn't mistake me for one.
"Interesting?" she laughs. She sounds vaguely hysterical. "Interesting?"
"Yeah, interesting. I realize that I haven't given you the easiest life, but you're certainly thriving here. It would have been quite boring if you'd stayed mortal and a Watcher the whole time."
She drinks her whatever. "So, you're responsible for all that's befallen me," she said.
"I don't know," I say. "Do thing happen to you because I write them, or do I write things because they happen to you? Am I causing things, or am I only recieving them? I remember this episode of this cartoon, I think it was 'Darkwing Duck' or something like that, where this writer invented a headset and tuned in on Darkwing's dimension. Ended getting rich off of Darkwing. At the end, the writer ended up picking up the Rescue Rangers, I think."
"Not only do I have a writer, but a philosophical one at that," Greer says, smiling wryly. She's taking this in stride, certainly. I'm sure if I was taking this in her place I wouldn't be half as calm.
And then I realized that she might not be as calm as I thought she was. She was smiling, but the smile was kind of forced. I hoped I could calm her. I'm not the most confrontational of people. "I didn't even know that you really existed. I mean, me and my fellow writers often talk about 'x told me this', or 'y is stubborn and refuses to talk', but I think that's more a function of us as writers than anything else. When a character 'talks' to us, reveals stuff, it's just our minds juggling plot, and when the characters refuse to go in the right direction, it's something telling us that it doesn't think that our plans are quite right."
"Is that still any reason to do things like that to us?" Greer replies, sipping her whatever.
"I'm a storyteller, a writer. People don't read my stuff to read about me. I'm very boring when I talk about myself. They come to escape their lives for a few minutes, immerse themselves in other peoples' lives. They've come to read about the happenings of lives more interesting or extrodinary than their own. They want to hear what you think about life, and what you do about the situations you find yourself in. They do the same for Rocky, for Teresa, every single character I've written about."
"Teresa?" Greer asks, putting her whatever down. "Who's Teresa?"
"Rocky's daughter. She's in my latest story that I'm working on."
"Are you going to tell Rocky this?" Greer turns the mug around. "You've done enough stuff to him, too."
"Actually, I'm not responsible for all of what happened to Rocky. I 'borrowed' him from someone. But, yeah, if I end up in that universe, I'll go over this with him."
Greer raises her eyebrow.
"Okay, so I didn't ask permission first. I'm a fanfic writer. We 'borrow' our characters from various and sundry sources, usually from Television. Some people borrow from books, but that's a touchy issue. It's a matter of respect for the original author, which is also why if you borrow another fanfic writer's characters, you ask permission. It's a different matter with television series. Mainly because they're made by a large amount of people and are owned by studios and such. It kind of makes them faceless. It doesn't make it any less wrong, really, but it's a long, complicated issue, and needless to say that since they tend to benefit, and for other reasons, they tend to leave us alone."
There's a long silence as she leans back and thinks. Gradually, her expression changes, perhaps softens. "So, which show did I come out of? Who created me?"
"I did," I tell her softly. "I created you. I took what one of the tv programmes gave me, the concepts of the Immortals and the Watchers, and came up with you. I 'borrow' many, many characters, but I create some on my own, such as you. I know a lot about you, more than you proably know about yourself."
"Then," she replies, maybe even softer, "who am I? Who are my parents?"
She looks so sad that I have to tell her. "You're Georgina Lewis, sometimes called Greer, and once upon a time, Geo. You're a fine human being, a former Watcher who still holds to their ideals. You're a woman who grew up in Alaska, became a Watcher, and then an Immortal, taking each event is enviable stride as you did so. You're probably someone I dream of being. As for your parents, I'm not really sure. The best I can come up with is that you were born to some 17th century minor nobility, and kidnapped by an alien entity before you were 2 days old. You didn't get home before 1963, and they put you on the wrong continent besides. I'm sure your parents loved you."
"Theory?"
"Personal theory," I confirm. "But it doesn't change who you are."
"I would have been boring then, right?" she asks, almost hopefully.
"Yeah, and I wouldn't have written you then. Despite my interest in history, I don't do historicals."
She grins. Then frowns. "I guess I'm stuck here, aren't I?"
"I think so. But then, it's not so bad," I remind her. "You've got friends, you've got a husband, you've got people who love you. Forget about those of us in another universe. Forget what may or may not have happened to you. That's the important thing remembering that you are loved."
"Giving advice, now?" she says, sounding vaguely amused.
"Giving advice to the advisor," I reply. "You're more important than you'll ever know."
She sighs. I lean over and pat her arm. "Trust me," I say.
I don't give her much choice, I can see. She slumps. "So, what do we do now?"
"I go to bed. Go to sleep. Go home." I get up and hug her. "I'm sorry," I say. "I'm sorry."
She hugs me back, tightly. It's a human instinct, a desire to grab onto something when you're falling.
I turn towards the couch and prepare to go home.
-The End