Gateway to Life
-:Book 1:-
Through Death, Rebirth
by Faeriemage

Sometimes, it is what you do that matters. Sometimes, it is who you are. Usually it is just being in the proper place at the proper moment in time with the will to act.

Chapter 5:
Live another day

I looked at Detective Patrice for a moment longer than was comfortable for either of us. It had to be a coincidence of some sort, since he looked nothing like my father. Step-father? Allen₁. I giggled at this last one. Most kids my age on Earth₂ won't remember Tron, but it actually came out in 2002 on Earth₂ (Well, if converted to Earth₁ dates). Brian₁ dragged me to it with his friends a couple of times. They locked me in the girls bathroom the second time. Brian₁'s dad had to let me out.

'Why did you keep hanging out with Brian after that?'

'I was seven. Boys do stupid things, and he apologized for it. Said it was just a joke.'

'Like the BMX flip?'

'I'm ignoring you now.'

This isn't about Brian₁, it's about Allen₂. Stop giggling, Jams.

I looked away from Allen₂ and blushed. He had the same last name as I did, but he looked nothing like my step-father. "Can I leave now?"

He told me that I could, so I walked over to where Helen₂ was standing. "I'm ready to go, Mom. . .I mean Helen₂." I blushed hotter than I did when Allen₂ caught me staring.

"Jamie, I told you that it was ok for you to call me Mom. I know I'm not really your Mom, and that you're not really my Jamie, but we're close enough, right?"

I kept my head down and nodded at this. "I guess you're right, Mom. This is all just so wierd and new to me."

"Don't you think it's the same for me? I'm burrying my daughter this weekend, and yet here she seems to be as large as life." I saw her starting to cry and so I went over and gave her a hug. "Thank you, sweetie. Let's get you home so that Jamie can say goodbye."

For the first time since this all started, I realized that I might want to stay on version of Earth. Ok, I know, it had only been two days since this all started, but there had been a lot happening in that two day period. It sometimes felt like it had been a week, instead of a couple of days.

Helen₂ drove us home by way of the city streets, and I began to notice other places where the Earth's had similarities: The Library was in the same slight depression, the strip mall had different shops but the same layout, and other things minor similarities along the way. I was thinking about what could have caused these similarities when I caught my reflection in the window. My eyes were almost completely orange. I pulled down the sun blind on the passenger side, and it had a vanity mirror on the other side. I looked at my eyes more closely. There were only a couple of spikes of green left in my eyes. The rest was the orangey-brown that I had noticed in the police station.

'What could be causing this,' I thought to myself. Before this happened, I would be worried if someone other than myself answered.

'It could be tied with pushing your journal to the other side?' She was as confused as I was. It was also the best explanation I was likely to get without laboratory testing. While I was looking at my eyes we arrived at home.

"Why don't you go lie down for a while. I will make an appointment with a doctor so that we can figure out why you passed out twice in the past twenty-four hours."

"Thanks, Mom." It was really weird calling someone other than my own mother Mom, but it seemed to make both Jams and Helen₂, so who was I to complain. Sure, sometimes she felt like my mother, so sometimes it felt right. The rest of the time I just felt like I was betraying my own mom doing it.

I went upstairs. From past experience, I cleaned off my makeup before lying down. I also got myself undressed, this time I put Jams' clothes in the hamper so that she could be happy about her room staying clean. I was asleep almost before by head touched the pillow. I don't remember any of the dreams I had before Jams was screaming at me to wake up.

I awoke to see someone who looked exactly like my step-father climbing into bed with me. He was naked. Jams was sobbing hysterically in a corner of my mind and saying 'I didn't know, I'm sorry' over and over in my head. I was already moving. I brought my knee into his crotch as hard as I could, and while he was crumpling up I slipped out of bed and ran to the door. It was locked, and I was unfamiliar with the mechanism. I felt more than saw him come up behind me.

"You little shit, you'll pay for that."

I skipped to the side as he tried to punch at me. He put his had through the door. In the moments it took for him to get himself free, I started into my attack. I threw punches and knees at his kidneys. I kicked the backs of his knees. I dislocated his right shoulder by twisting it up and away when he threw a wild punch behind him. I kept kicking him in the balls until he collapsed on the ground. I kicked him a couple of more times to make sure he wouldn't be getting up for a moment and then unlocked the door.

I was so focused on subduing my assailant, that I hadn't heard Helen₂ pounding on the door. She burst in as soon as I unlocked the door, took one look at her husband on the floor, and grabbed the comforter from the bed. "Honey, wrap this around you, and go downstairs for a bit. Keep your brother down there."

"Um. . ."

"Go, now, Jamie."

I left, but not before seeing her open her cell phone. I went downstairs and sat in the living room. Jamie₂ was still hysterical.

'I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I never meant to put you into danger. I'm so sorry.'

'Shhh. It's ok, Jams. Nothing happened. We're safe now.'

'But, I should have known. He spend so much time with my brothers when they were younger. He never spent that much time with me.'

'That doesn't mean anything, Jams. It's not your fault. You didn't make that bastard attack us.'

'It was my daddy.' She began to wail again. I thought her a hug and imagined that I just held her until she stopped crying. I heard a siren approach the house and saw the flashing lights. The police knocked on the front door. I went and let them in and pointed upstairs. I didn't feel like talking to anyone but Mary right now. I went to the kitchen and got the phone.

I dialed Jams' number and waited while it rang. "Hello, Jamie?"

"Mary. . ." Suddenly, all of my tension broke in a wave. I began to sob and told Mary all that had happened to me today. She just listened to me talk. I kept talking for almost an hour when I started to hear a beeping sound on the phone.

"The screen says that the phone is about to die, Jamie. I'll need to figure out how to recharge it, if I can. I will call Jamie₁'s house when I get it working ag. . ." She was gone.

I felt even more lost than when I started the call. I sat in the kitchen and hugged my shoulders sobbing quietly. Jams enfolded me in a mental hug and we both cried into each other. It wasn't a real hug, but it felt real. As I continued to cry, I felt someone else hug me.

"It's ok, sweetie. He can't hurt you now. Did he. . .I mean. . .Was my Jamie. . ."

'Tell Mommy that he never touched me like that.'

"Jamie says he never raped her."

'SIS!'

"She also yelled at me for paraphrasing."

Helen₂ chuckled ruefully. "Tell her that I agree with your version."

"She can hear you, Mom."

Helen₂ blushed. At that moment a boy of nine or ten came into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. "Where's dad?"

"Well, sweetie, Dad tried to, um. . ."

"Dad tried to play with me in an inappropriate manner, So I beat him up and then the police came and arrested him."

"You mean that I don't have to play the bedroom games with Dad anymore. Thank you Jamie. I knew that you didn't die like Mom said. You saved me." He ran over and threw his arms around me. I had no idea who this hurt little child was. It was obvious that he was Jamie₂'s brother, but I didn't have a brother. I didn't have a sister either.

'What about me?'

I didn't have a sister before I met with Jamie₂. I was out of my depth. I put my arms around the shaking body of the little boy and tried to comfort him as best as I could. He snuggled into me. "Do you want to talk to me about it?"

He shook his head. I just held him for a while, letting him relax. Mom hand up the phone. I hadn't even noticed that she had picked up the phone.

"Gabe, I have set an appointment for you to speak to Mary. Would you like to speak to Mary like your big sister?"

He looked uncertain for a moment, looked up at me, and then nodded his head. "I can do it if Jamie can do it."

I smiled down at him.
"Jamie, your appointment is at the same time."

My smile faded a bit. "Jamie, are you ok? Are you afraid of your doctor?" I looked into his eyes and shook my head. "I am worried about my appointment, but I'm not afraid of my doctor."

"Let's get you into bed."

I pried his hands off me long enough to put on a nightgown, and then I led him to his room. I sat down next to him and rubbed his back while he relaxed and went to sleep. I left his door open and I went back downstairs to talk to Helen₂.

"Is Gabe asleep?"

"Yes, he's asleep now. This is nothing like my world. My step-father might have beat me up, but he never molested me."

"Probably the only thing that saved my Jamie was that he thought of her as a girl. Why did he think differently about you?

I blushed. "Um, I was in my boy underwear, and I wasn't under the covers."

She nodded at that, but she was staring off into space as she did it. She shook herself. "Well, tomorrow is going to be busy. We need to visit the doctor early tomorrow, so you should get some sleep while you can, Honey."

I hugged her. "Jamie loves you, Mommy. And I love you too."

She smiled, and I went up to our room. I looked into the mirror and was startled to see more green than the last time I looked at my eyes.

'Your eyes are more green. . ."

'I think it means I got some of my energy back. I think it was sleeping that did it.' I felt Jamie pull away from me a little bit.

'Jams, what's wrong?'

'As soon as you get your energy back, you'll go back to your world, and I either have to move on, or go with you. I like my world. I don't want to lose my Mommy and brothers.'

'Brothers?'

'I have another one in college.'

'Jams, I like your family, well minus your Daddy'

I felt Jamie shudder. 'I'm soooo sorry that I dragged you here now. We should have just stayed on the other side.'

'Don't say that. We would never have known, and we couldn't have saved Gabe.'

'Thank you, Sis. You always know how to cheer me up.'

'It helps that we are virtually the same person.'

I changed into a pair of Jams' panties before I climbed back into bed. For some reason sleeping in my old underwear creeped me out all of the sudden. Strangely enough, the panties were actually more comfortable than my old ones. I climbed into bed, and went to sleep.

Jams and I played in my dreams 'til morning. It seemed that since allowing Jams into my dreams, I had a lot more control of the dreamscape, and I could even, sometimes, choose which dream we were in. We did the Arthur dream twice, and each of us got to be Guinevere.

When Jams left, I started crafting a dream. I'm not sure exactly how to describe the process. It was a lot like oil painting with cotton candy, if that makes any sort of sense.

I was making a place for her to live. Added her Mom and brother to the house. I felt Jams coming back, so I locked the dream away and went to meet her. I didn't want her to see it until it was ready.

'Time to get up, Sis.'

I woke up and went the bathroom to bathe. Jams and I then argued a bit on how to make my hair look more feminine. In the end, neither of us had any real luck, but she was more successful than I was. She has had more practice. I went back to our room and looked in the closet and drawers for something to wear. I picked a button up white blouse with puffed sleeves. I picked a pair of jeans to go with it. Jamie showed me how to tuck myself away so I wouldn't show in the jeans.

I got a pair of her flats, the ones she thought went best with the outfit, and we put on makeup. Or I should say I messed up our makeup, and Jams salvaged it. More of the green was back in my eyes from the last time I had looked.

Gabe was still asleep, so I gently woke him up. He threw on some clothing. 'Boys sure have it easier sometimes,' I thought with a smile.

'Do you want to go back, Sis?'

'Not on your life.'

We went downstairs and had some breakfast. It was cold cereal and toast, but that was fine with me. Mom looked at me for a moment.

"Jamie should know that I don't really approve of thirteen year-olds wearing makeup on a daily basis. However, since you both kept it very light, and it does make you look a lot more feminine, I think we can leave it for now."

I felt Jams jumping and clapping again.

The moment that she saw my grin get bigger, she put up a cautioning hand, "The first time I see you lathering on the makeup, however, it all goes away."

I went and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you, Mommy."

After breakfast we went and got in the car and went to the Clinic. It was sort of a small hospital, but didn't offer surgery or anything like that. Mom. . .I mean Helen₂ left me in the waiting room while she took Gabe down to see Mary₂.

They called my name while I was still waiting for Helen₂.

"My Mom is with my brother right now," I said to the nurse who came out to get me.

"You can wait for your Mother if you want, but you might have to wait a bit longer."

'I'm here with you, Sis."

"I'm ready to go back now, thank you."

The nurse smiled at me and we went back into the Clinic. She measured my height and weight, and checked my blood pressure. Then she led me into one of the patient rooms. I sat on the table and waited for the doctor to arrive.

"So, Jamie, I see that you fainted a couple of times in the past couple of days. . .what happened to your hair?" The doctor stopped dead in his tracks at the first sight of me. He was an older man with salt and pepper hair. I liked him instantly. "You certainly look a lot like Jamie, but you don't look exactly the same. You could almost be her identical twin."

"I'm Jamie from another world."

"Really," he began to chuckle as if this were a joke, but then stopped. He noticed I wasn't smiling.

"Well, at least you seem convinced. So, tell me what happened."

I went into the full story, again, this time including the changes in eye color I had noticed before, as well as the total number of times I had crossed back and forth.

"You say that Mary. . .Mary₁ was it," at my nod he continued, 'got an electric shock when she touched the portal?"

"Yes."

"Hmm. I have to admit that this is a bit beyond my understanding. There are some tests on body chemistry I can run, and so forth, but we would have to enlist a research facility to fully explore what you are capable of, and I'm not sure that's such a good idea at your age. Especially with your other life choices."

He sat back for a moment. "I want you to try to push this tongue depressor." He handed me the oversized popsicle stick and I concentrated on sending it to Earth₁. "Stop, that's enough. You were right, my dear. When you begin to use your power, it seems that whatever chemical reaction fuels it, causes your eyes to change color. What exactly that process is, I'm not ready to speculate, but I think you should be very careful when you use this ability. It also seems as though geography is not as important as having a sentient focus."

"What do you mean?"

"When you tried to push the Journal across, before thinking about your father, you almost used up all of your reserves. So, you had almost no energy left. When you tried to connect to your father and then push it, you easily opened a door for the book. This ability needs a focus. It also seems to weaken the, um, wall, I guess you could call it, between worlds."

"How do you know so much about this?" I looked at him in awe.

"I read a lot of science fiction books." He said. He blushed a bit as he said this.

"From what you were saying about your phone calls, the original portal is closing. You opened another with the book, but that too will probably close in time. It might take the books opening longer to close, because of all the energy you originally put into it, but then again, it might close faster. We just don't know."

I nodded, a bit confused.
"Don't worry about it, Jamie. I'm sure you will be ok. Let's get some blood drawn, and then we can go find your Mother."

One of the nurses drew my blood, and then they wanted me to give them a urine sample, which was embarrassing. I got all of that done, and we went to Mary₂'s office to wait for Mom and Gabe.

I sat down and picked up the closest magazine, which happened to be a teen magazine. I read through it, since I had nothing better to do. Ok, I liked it a lot. Mom and Gabe came out with Mary₂.

"Hello, Jamie. Do you have time to come talk to me for a bit," Mary₂ asked me.

Her tone worried me a bit. 'Don't worry, Sis. We'll be fine.' I took a deep breath and stepped past Mary₂ into the room.