Twisted Returns

"Hey," Lorraine says cheerfully as I enter the room. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I say. "I'm fine, why?"

"Because it's noon and you ditched me last night."

"Sorry," I say, faking a yawn. "I was just tired."

"Huh. Okay." I can hear a sliver of doubt in her voice. She turns and looks at the crib beside her bed. "Nicole is sleeping. As always."

"She's adorable," I say, peering into the crib and seeing not much more than a bundle of blankets. "So... guess what I saw last night."

"Hmm?"

I tell her all about what I had seen last night in room seventeen, watching her expression. She seems very surprised.

"Ashlee doesn't seem like that kind of girl..." Lorraine says. "I mean, making out with someone against a wall, while on the job?"

"Yeah," I agree. "I always thought she was too much of a goody two shoes."

"Well... me too, kind of. But wait, do you have any idea who this person was?"

I shake my head. "No idea at all. He was about the same height as her. That's all I know. I was only there for a few seconds."

"You know it was a guy?"

"I assume so."

"Oh..." Lorraine leans closer to me, the same way she always does when she gossips. "Because I think it was a girl."

"You think she's a lesbian?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "She has that obvious crush on Andrew, though."

"Well, that's true, but nothing ever happened between them. And if I remember correctly," she says, cringing, "Andrew was one of my ex-boyfriends in our past life. And she had a crush on him after we broke up. So it could have been a past life influence."

"That doesn't prove she's a lesbian or anything."

"Hold on, I'm not finished," she says. "You know how Ashlee helped us out, back on Earth?"

"Yeah. Buy taking us to her friend's apartment."

"Her friend wasn't just a friend."

"What is that supposed to mean? Were they together or something?"

"I'm pretty sure..." Lorraine says. "I caught them kissing once."

"Seriously? Her and Kelly? But we were all like, thirteen or something. And Kelly was nineteen, I think."

"Yeah, I thought that was wrong. But I wasn't about to say anything about it."

"Why not? You could have told me."

"I thought if they wanted to keep it a secret, I would let them. I was going to tell you eventually, but then I forgot. But anyways, I made sure that Kelly wasn't a threat. She never knew who we really were."

I blink. "Wow. I didn't expect that."

"I-" At this point, Nicole starts crying.

"I guess I'll, uh, go?" I say as Lorraine takes her baby from the crib. She nods and I exit.

On my way out, I find Dean waiting for me. Not in our room, where I left him.

"Dean? Here to visit Lorraine?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Here to get you, actually."

"Why?" I ask, suddenly alert. "Something happened?"

"Yeah. It's Lynda."

"What happened?" I nearly shout, knowing full well that she was in the middle of the fighting...

"I don't know. I was going to get something to eat, and came here to see if you wanted anything. But then I saw them bringing Lynda in on a stretcher."

"What did she look like? Was she okay?"

"She looked fine. Well, at least her face, other than being unconscious. The rest of her body was covered up."

Just then a young man walks by, his hand in his blond hair. He is hearing the blue hospital uniform.

"Excuse me! Do you know what room Lynda McPhee is in?" He crinkles his eyebrows in confusion. I then remember that we don't go by our Earth names legally. "I mean, Lacy Queens McLace."

"Oh," he says, understanding. "Room thirty-two."

I thank him, grab Dean's hand, and run down the hallway.

----

"She's going to be fine," Andrew says. "All she got was some acidic substance on her foot."

"What happened with that?"

"They had to amputate her foot. For now, they gave her prosthetics. We don't have the materials to regrow it right now."

I look down at her sleeping form, her peaceful expression. "I'm glad she's alright."

"Yeah, but we still have to do some testing to make sure nothing has gone wrong. That's why I'm here,"

"What are you testing?" Dean asks. He seems genuinely interested.

"General health,"Andrew tells him. He holds up a small device, about the same size and shape as a pen. "This scans you and shows your 'life line'. These have been made specially for us, the Terrans, since we all are now in different bodies."

He points it to Dean and a green light engulfs him. A few seconds later, a horizontal red line materializes in the air.

"Look at this huge dip," Andrew says, pointing to a spot near the left end of the line. "This was when you died, as Charles. And this smaller one. It's closer to the right. That was when you had the flu at Lynda's house."

"Lynda's should have a huge decline," I say, feeling my heart ache. "For those months when she was dying."

Andrew nods and then scans her. The line shows up, as expected, with the huge dip in the beginning. There's a medium sized line near the middle, for when she broke her arm when she was five. But other than small bumps, her line is horizontal.

"This is wrong," I say. But then I get that sick feeling in my stomach... "She was dying, we all saw it."

Andrew looks at Lynda, to Dean, and then to me. "She... she lied. She was never dying."