Roswell Fanatics

Coach Greer liked everything about athletics and he liked teenagers. Because of this he took great enjoyment out of his counseling and coaching, watching young kids learn the skills they needed to be successful, not just in athletics, but in their lives. He had a brass plaque over his desk in his counseling office, a Yogi Berra quote; If you don't know where you are going, you'll probably wind up somewhere else. He smiled as he walked toward his other office in the gym, the football coach's office, as he heard the running in the gym. 'Well that sure won't be her problem...'

Running ladders was an exercise that coaches had their players do for quickness, endurance, and agility. You had them run back and forth betwine the baseline and painted marks on the gym floor. It was miserable, everybody hated running ladders. Nobody ran them unless the coach made them do it....except her. And hers were distinctive too, you could tell just by the sound. Everybody else ran ladders the same way, starting medium fast, fading to a slower speed, and putting on a burst of speed right at the last rung or two, maybe three if they were really trying to impress the coach. But not her. The basketball team wasn't scheduled to practice for a half hour yet, but she was out there warming up already. And she was running ladders, without anyone even telling her to do it. And hers were always the same he'd noticed, starting at a moderate pace and just continuing to accelerate as she progressed, arriving at the end going as fast as she could, but totally spent. Greer smiled. Just like those online courses. It'd been only two days since he'd OK'd her entry to the online courses. She was ready for the midterm on one of them, and had started the other. Not to mention becoming the starting point guard. He smiled wondering what else she'd had time to do in the last 48hrs. She'd registered for next semester for one thing, managing to get two classes and a lunch period with Andrew Douglas, he'd noticed. 'Apparently she DID put as much effort into romance as she did into her sports activity,' Greer thought with a smile, 'I hope Douglas is up to the pace she sets...'

As she saw Coach Greer enter the gym, Joey finished the last ladder and wobbled on weary legs over to meet him. "Could I talk with you for a minute, coach?"

"Certainly Miss Guerin. Here, or in the office?"

"The office, I guess. I just wanted to know if it would be possible for me to borrow the videos from last year's games and last years scouting videos to look at this weekend."

"Planning on going out for the team, Miss Guerin?" He asked that only partly tongue-in-cheek, a couple of girls had tried that over the years, finally losing the lawsuit. Heck, she'd probably make a decent kicker at that....maybe a wide receiver too, for that matter."

Joey smiled up at him. "No Coach, just thought I'd watch them with Andrew. His parents decided last night he could go out for football next year.

Greer struggled not to smile. "Well, the league limits the coaching I can do in the off-season, but there are no restrictions against a couple watching game films together. I’ll go get them for you. You are a couple now, I take it?”

Joey blushed slightly, “yeah Coach, I guess we are…”

As he gathered the tapes he hesitated as he reached for the tape of the game in which Douglas had been injured. “I’m not sure you want to see this one, Miss Guerin. This particular game and the weekend that followed, are one I’ll never forget.”

‘Me neither, Coach, me neither…..' thought Joey, remembering those three days alone with Andrew…

“Oh, and remind Douglas he needs to get the paperwork from that doctor in Albuquerque to the team doctor for his review, if you would Miss Guerin.”

“Speaking of Albuquerque, Coach, what do you think of the speed and agility camp at UNM in late summer?”

“It’s quite good, actually. Why do you ask?”

“Drew and I will be working at the Pemberton camp next summer. It’s over in time for us to go to the UNM camp, except that would mean that Drew would miss the first two football practices in the Fall.”

“Well the first three practices are conditioning practices and the next is a conditioning assessment, that’s pretty important, Miss Guerin. We need people to be in shape.”

“Well Coach, Janet Pemberton said Drew and I can use the track and gym facilities there before and after work, and on weekends. We could workout together. He’d be in shape.”

Coach Greer had been told by the girl’s basketball coach about Joey Guerin’s workout schedule. Greer hoped that Andrew Douglas could survive a summer of it. If he did, he’d likely be in the best condition of his life. “Well, I don’t think missing just two practices would be the end of the world. Maybe Douglas could pick up his playbook and take it up there to study too, just so he wouldn’t be bored all alone in the big city….except for you that is. I’d hate for him to be ….bored.”

As Joey left Coach Greer’s office she noticed the arrival of the first of her basketball teammates. She quickly went to the locker room to dump the videos into her locker before joining her teammates for the practice.

It had been a phenomenally productive week, she knew. Both of Drew’s parents were not just on board with the Czechoslovakian business, but with her and Drew as a couple as well.

But while that was two out of four, Joey realized that she had no real idea how to get her own parents on board with the concept of Andrew as a future son-in-law. They would have all the standard reasons, she knew. She and Andrew were too young, neither had really ever dated anyone else, neither had the experience to make such a decision, neither was old enough to know their own mind.

And if it hadn’t been for the connection, Joey thought she might have even agreed with them. But they were not just so very compatible in the connection, able to connect even from across the room, but they had both seen into each other’s souls, and seen into each other’s hearts. She had no doubt how Andrew felt about her, and he had no real doubt about how she felt about him. The problem was her parents.

Roger and Barbara Douglas, she knew, had been taken by surprise. Finding out that Drew really had been that severely injured, and that she’d healed him, automatically got them looking favorably about Joey Guerin. She’d given them their son back, they could scarcely object to sharing him a little. And the Czechoslovakian business had also helped her, because it had enabled her to help their son.

Mom and Dad would be a harder sell. Her being part Czechoslovakian was certainly no news to them, they’d known that…..well, at conception, since they’d both been there. And while she had no doubt that they were pleased that she’d been able to help Andrew, Andrew was a stranger to them, at least up until the basketball game Monday. Unlike the Douglas’s, it wasn’t like they really would figure they owed their daughter anything for healing him.

And Joey, the girl who had learned from her Aunt Liz to always have a plan, really hadn’t come up with a plan yet that she believed would be enough to sell her parents. Her interim plan, actually, was to just try to keep everything low key, like she had with her mom. But sooner or later, she knew they were going to get after her to not see so much of Andrew, or at least to see other guys as well, and she just wasn’t going to do that.

What she and Andrew had was special, they were truly soulmates…….but convincing Mom and Dad about that??? No good plan had emerged to Joey yet. But no time for one now, because the basketball practice was about to begin in earnest.

Back in Washington DC, Kate Powers reviewed the El Paso Vice-Presidential Advance Planning document. It looked like the team leader had only made cosmetic changes from her draft. The trip would be in seven days, and preparations were well underway. She looked again at the threat book for the El Paso area. Nothing she hadn’t covered. On a hunch, she looked at the Roswell area book. Nothing at all. Sometime between 2010 and the present, apparently those four people had either moved away or someone decided they were no longer a problem. Or, she remembered, that special unit had simply gone out of business, and there was no one left from it to give any warnings. Already the names were starting to fade from her mind, the first names already gone. Let’s see, Evans, Ramirez, Guerin, and Valenti. Had they really been some kind of a witness protection program family? If not, who were they, and why had anyone been concerned about them? Oh well, it shouldn’t affect the Vice President’s visit. Just one of the little curiosities of life that puzzled you for awhile, then you just forgot about, she decided.

Andrew had finished his library research and was sitting in the bleachers, trying to finish his homework while watching Joey flow down the floor, dishing off passes right and left, suddenly cutting to the basket when she could use a screen and putting up long outside shots when left open.

He really wasn’t that much of a basketball player, but even to his eyes she was impressive, and the team as a whole was now moving to her rhythm. At this rate, they'd be contenders for the state title.

She had an out of town game the next day, but he wouldn't be going. New Mexico was a large state, and sparsely speckled with towns. Roswell, with less than 50,000 population, was still in the top six cities in population and tomorrow they would play Rio Rancho, a Roswell-sized town north of Santa Fe. Team members would be given the last three periods off for the three hour bus ride there, but that didn’t hold for fans. And maybe that was a good thing, he figured, because he really needed some time without Joey to think over what his father had said last night, and figure out how to set it up.

He had been surprised and more than a little irritated when his father had come to his room to talk to him last night. He had been more angry than he really wanted to admit when his father had threatened Joey, and it hadn’t been helped when she had tried to talk him into accepting that he would have to go on living a ‘normal' life while she and her entire family went into hiding, because of his father. Later on, in a long dreamwalk talk strolling down the beach she’d told him….sort of, about how his father’s turnaround had occurred. He still felt she was holding something back about that though.

But when his father had come into his room, Roger Douglas had faced a still fairly pissed off son who felt that his father had threatened someone he loved, and put everyone else that she loved at risk, because he was bigoted about who she was, about where her people had come from. The reception had not been a friendly one.

‘Andrew, we need to talk about you and Joey. Your mother and I are concerned about how close you’ve become, and how quickly that has happened. We need to talk about …..our fears about you two becoming even closer in the future.’

‘No, Dad. We are NOT having this conversation. I can’t believe you could treat her like that, Dad,….you threatened her…how could you do that? When she told me in seventh grade we couldn’t go out together because we were ‘too different’ I didn’t understand. And you know Dad, when she told me her secret….I still didn’t understand, because I couldn’t believe anyone would treat her…..like you did tonight.’

Andrew had watched the pain come to his father’s eyes then, and his father had slowly shaken his head.
‘I was wrong about that, Andrew. Joey forgave me…..if you can’t well I’m sorry, that’s all I can say. But because I was wrong about that, doesn’t mean I'm wrong now, or that we don’t need to have this conversation, because we do.

I like Joey, Andrew. Even without her.. 'gifts’, I think I would have come to like her anyway. But son, less than a week ago we really didn’t even know that Joey was a part of your life. In that week your mother and I have both come to accept…..no, come to be happy that she is a part of your life. Not just because of her healing you, but because through those gifts of hers we really have come to understand how the two of you feel about each other, as scary as that is to us. And it’s not scary because of…her family, it’s scary because you are only sixteen, and she’s not yet even that, and neither of you have even been involved in a non-serious romantic relationship before. If you are going to act like an adult, son, you’ve got to take responsibility for your actions.

Now you may not want to have to have this talk with me, you may not be willing to have this talk with me, but you better damn sure have it with her, Andrew.

The two of you have to decide what’s…allowable in your relationship and the time to do that is in the bright light of day, communicating to one another and making sure of what steps you are each comfortable with…and how you ...prepare for and take responsibility for those steps. That’s not a talk that can wait until the two of you are in the back seat of the car, in the throes of passion. She’s only fifteen, Andrew, but I truly believe she does love you, and I truly believe you love her, and whatever you may think of what I did tonight, I’m telling you now that I’m happy for both of you, and whatever happens I’ll welcome Joey into our family. But you both have educations to get, and adult lives to prepare for. This isn’t about Joey’s family…..if you and Joey were to have a child a year from now, no child would have a grandfather that loved it anymore than I would love that child, but the consequences of that to you and Joey are something that you need to go into with your eyes wide open.

And son, no matter what you think about how I reacted to Joey…….I like her Andrew, I like her a lot, and I think she has been good for you, ….not just the healing but…..I think some people just do a lot better as part of a couple than either one does separately. I think it’s that way for your Mom and me too,son.

I think that you are very fortunate to have found Joey, son….and I’m afraid if you somehow mess it up, you’re unlikely to be that fortunate again.’


You didn’t have many conversations like that with your parents, fortunately. But in the end Andrew had felt the intensity in his father’s feelings toward Joey. Whatever had gone on between them, she’d certainly won him over. And he knew his Dad was right. He needed to have that talk with Joey. And if past events were any indication, it probably ought to be pretty soon. The connection really let them understand one another but it was at times…intoxicating, to both of them. Sometime in the next few days they needed to carve out some private time to discuss this. Normally, the prospect of such a talk with a member of the opposite sex would have embarrassed him to tears, but Joey was his soulmate. She’d understand. She always did.

It was strange how soon you could get used to someone, thought Joey, how soon you could get accustomed to them being there. Not accustomed like you were taking them for granted, just accustomed to them like….well it just didn’t feel right that she would be so far away from Drew tomorrow. She had always been kind of a loner, afraid of getting close. Now that she was close, it felt a little scary to be that far away from Andrew. That seemed silly, but it was true. It was like losing a part of herself.

As they walked along the beach, she savored his company. She looked out at the sunset. Somehow he always did that. Daytime on the beach corresponded to nighttime in Roswell, and as sunset approached it was time to leave him again. It was beautiful, but it sort of made her sad too. Because it meant they would soon be parting to live separate lives.

It had been another beautiful dreamwalk, not a lot of passion, just a few tender kisses, but they’d talked about so many things, so much of what they wanted in the future. It was funny, really. Before they were a couple, she really hadn’t thought much about the future. Now it was all she could do to keep from wishing the next two years away, just to get there, just to be with him. She’d told him that, and he’d hugged her and told her they should enjoy every second they had together, and of course he was right. Maybe that’s why the away game was making her feel a sense of loss….., because he wouldn’t be there to enjoy those seconds with her.

At least they’d have Saturday, after she got done shopping with her Mom. Jan Pemberton wanted them to go out to the camp to do the paperwork for their jobs, give Drew some kind of orientation, and have them help her with some ideas about how to run the scheduling, since they’d have more girls next summer than ever before. She’d have to skip the lunch with her Mom and Barbara in order for her and Drew to get out there on time.

Then there was the mysterious ‘private talk’ Drew had wanted to have with her. She wondered what that was about? Perhaps he’d thought of a way they could break the news to her folks. She was still devoid of good ideas on that one. Usually it was Mom she worried about, but she was more worried this time about Dad, and how he would react to losing his ‘princess’ at fifteen. She looked up at Drew, her fingers intertwined with his. He sensed her thoughts and gave her a soft kiss,…it was almost time to go.

She wondered if it would have ever happened, if Drew hadn’t broken his neck. If she hadn’t been forced to make the decision to tell him, would she ever have found the courage? She almost wished something would force her to confront her folks….almost. But they were going to go ballistic, she knew it, and it would not be pretty. As the sun set below the horizon, the beach rippled and dissolved. She looked up at the ceiling of her bedroom, surprised at how lonely her bed seemed suddenly.

Although there were few Roswell fans at the late afternoon game in Rio Rancho, the local radio station had sent an announcer to broadcast the game, and Andrew Douglas smiled as he listened to his commentary.

This is really a surprise, ladies and gentlemen, because Rio Rancho is really a pretty good team and this was supposed to be a close game, Rio Rancho even being slightly favored.

But the Roswell team just came out early and simply demolished the favored Rio Rancho Lady Rams. Joelle Guerin, the new starting point guard came out like a one woman wrecking crew, with seven steals, 17 points, and 12 assists in the first half. Rio Rancho's efforts to regroup after the half were similarly frustrated and since midway in the third quarter when the Lady Rams had their second guard foul out trying to defend Guerin, both sides have pulled their starters and are just trying to give their deep bench some playing time because this game is in the bag for Roswell. Barring miraculous scoring by some of the subs, the game high scorer will be Guerin with 24 points, the last two coming on freethrows when the Lady Ram guarding her fouled out.

After their surprise win over Clovis, their recent easy victory over Carlsbad, and today's demolishing of Rio Rancho, the Roswell girls suddenly find themselves legitimate contenders for the state championship,....at least if they can get by Clovis to get there.

'That's my Joey', he thought.


Joey watched the game finish from the bench. She'd enjoyed the game, and more and more she was feeling personal friendships with her teamates, something she'd never really let herself do before. She knew that he'd done that, .....somehow made her feel less alien, ....more human.

She could kid and joke with them.....Andrea still teased her about the 'kiss in the key,' which apparently was achieving something of legend status in Roswell girls basketball lore.

Well, that was OK, let them laugh at her, she was glad she'd done it. She didn't care if they joked.

'You damn right it curled my toes,' she'd told them, 'I've asked Nike to specially design a pair of shoes for me with extra toe room for when we win at State. You ain't seen nothing yet.'

And she did enjoy the cameraderie, and the friendships she had never let herself have before. Maybe she and Drew could double-date with Andrea and her steady. Not that she felt a need to be chaperoned around Andrew, certainly, but she'd seen both her father and her mother giving her 'that look' when he'd picked her up to drive her to school this morning. She wondered how they would have looked if they'd seen her telling him goodbye between classes. The 'eraser room' her mom and Aunt Lizzie had joked about had long ago been converted into a storage area, and had a serious lock on it to keep it from being used for anything other than storage. It was a good lock too. She hadn't been able to open ones like that for the first 6 months she'd practiced opening locks....not until she was almost five.

Anyway, maybe if they double dated Mom and Dad wouldn't look so...intense. She shook her head. Still no good plan for how to tell them. Maybe this 'private meeting' Andrew wanted tomorrow would provide some answers to how he felt they ought to handle her parents....except, Joey knew she knew her parents better than Andrew did. If she couldn't think of a way, why should she expect him to?

Joey turned her attention back to the game. As soon as the clock ran out, they'd all go shake hands, hit the showers, and go to the local pizza place for dinner. It'd be fun, but even so she missed him. It'd be too late by the time the bus got home to go out, and her parents were meeting the bus in any event. She sure missed him though. Oh well, they'd have tomorrow. And the beach tonight......

'It was funny,' Maria Guerin thought, as she and Barbara Douglas were shown to their table. 'A week ago I barely knew that Andrew Douglas existed.'

Sure, she'd known he was the kid that Joey had healed, and Izzie had said that she'd really been impressed by Andrew....but she really hadn't given Andrew any consideration other than telling Joey to keep away from him until his notoriety lessened. Yes, they had been together for those three days, but Joey had assured her that nothing inappropriate had gone on then, and Joey had not been with him until her grounding was over. And frankly, Andrew Douglas had not even been on Maria's radar screen until that kiss Monday.

The memory of that kiss still seemed scorching to Maria six days later. And Andrew had gone overnight from someone who didn't exist to someone Joey had seen every single day since that time. She'd had dinner with his parents TWICE. Andrew picked her up before school every morning, and dropped her off every afternoon. Her daughter who usually dressed in levis and a sweatshirt had actually started dressing like.....a girl.

And the dress she'd just bought.......my! Maria allowed as how if she looked at it objectively, the changes in Joey weren't that much different than how she'd changed as a teenager, it was just that it was such a big change for Joey, and went so quickly. The dress she'd bought today really didn't show any more...cleavage, than those Maria had worn, she decided. But Maria hadn't gone from sweatshirts to seductive dresses in a single week.

Maria had to agree with Barbara that Joey had looked lovely in it. As she looked again at Andrew's mom, she had to admit that she'd been surprised about how comfortable Joey had been with Barbara Douglas. Joey had always been uncomfortable with people who didn't know about the Czechoslovakian business. And Barbara certainly had been warm with Joey, treating her almost like a daughter. Maria imagined that she too was struggling with the fast developing relationship between the two teenagers, all the more so because she didn't know about the three days the two had been together in the pod chamber.

Maria was pretty sure that Barbara had talked at length to Joey about that kiss at the basketball game, that first night when Joey had gotten off grounding.....and then missed curfew. But that was time well spent, Maria was sure, if Barbara had somehow been able to cool down the relationship, and she hoped to talk to her at lunch privately, since Joey AGAIN was with Andrew, to see if they couldn't come up with a plan to cool down the relationship a little more.

It wasn't that Maria didn't trust Joey, or that she didn't want her to have a boyfriend, but you never found your Prince Charming without kissing a few frogs, and to the best of Maria's belief Joey had never kissed ANY boy prior to Andrew. 'Damn, she's a fast learner though,' thought Maria, remembering the basketball game. 'Must get it from Michael.'
And in fact, that was what was disturbing her the most, not that her baby daughter had a boyfriend, but that before their very first date, before she'd spent anytime with him at all, Joey seemed head-over-heels for Andrew, and he seemed like he was really putting a full court press on her.

No doubt Andrew was very experienced when it came to dating, but Joey wasn't, and Maria hoped she'd found an ally in Barbara Douglas in slowing down the passion, at least giving this relationship a little time to get over the puppy love stage, before things got too serious. Andrew really did seem polite enough, his parents had obviously taught him well. And maybe if Joey were 16 or 17 and had been dating a few years, Joey's rush into this relationship wouldn't have frightened Maria so much. But it had.

But if she and Barbara could come up with a plan to slow the two down....... She looked again at Barbara Douglas, sensing a potential ally there.

The old Honda climbed the gradual hill on the road north, it's storage batteries now depleted and it's little gasoline engine chugging along. The girl's camp had once been a dude ranch, but while the desert had its own scenic beauty, the grazing was too poor to support a working ranch, even one subsidized by tourism. The Pemberton's had bought it seven years ago, converting the old tourist lodging facilities into classrooms and the pastures into athletic fields. Joey liked the place, and she was anxious to show it to Drew.

"Mr. and Mrs. Pemberton are really nice, Andrew. He's a software engineer who usually works from home, but has to go off to California about one week out of each month for project meetings. Jan used to be a software engineer but quit when they got enough money to buy the ranch. Since then she writes children's books in the winter and runs the girl's camp during the summer. She's published four different books, and is working on another one. They have one child, Corby. Last year Corby had just turned two, and while he wasn't really 'terrible,' he was sure busy."

Jan Pemberton was making a list of items to be worked on before the camp opened in the Spring. Robert Pemberton had caught the little Mesa Airlines commuter to Albuquerque and from there to San Jose by airliner just yesterday. Corby was 'helping' Jan. Jan realized that Corby was sort of spoiled, but somehow just couldn't help herself from indulging him. She and Bob had put off having children, working on their careers until she was almost thirty and then found that somewhere during the ten years she'd been on the pill, her fertile days had all but gone. Three years of increasingly unpleasant fertility treatments, had resulted in Corby. They wanted another child, but none so far.

She saw the car coming up the long driveway and wrote a final item on her to-do list, repair solar cover on pool, and then picked up Corby to go see Joey and the new employee.

"Hello Joey....Andrew. Welcome to the Pemberton Camp."

"Corby, you've gotten so big," said Joey.

"Yeah, and busy as ever," said Jan.

After the employment paperwork and tax forms had been filled out, Jan made lunch for everyone before Andrew's orientation. Corby wound up getting about four types of sandwiches, taking no more than two bites of each. Joey looked up at Andrew, *Yup, he sure is busy...*

After lunch, Jan asked Joey if she would start sorting the campers into skill levels for their sports classes, based upon previous experience and skill level, while she gave Andrew a facility tour. Corby was put down in his crib for his afternoon nap.

Drew was shown the computer labs, and how to use them, the pool, the climbing walls, the athletic fields, the gymnasium and weight rooms, and the sand volleyball court. A quick tour of the cross country course ended at the main house, just to check on Corby. Drew waited on the golf cart looking out over the countryside until he heard scrambling steps behind him.
"He's gone....he must have climbed out of his crib."

Jan checked the house quickly. "Maybe he went down to see Joey...," Jan said.

Andrew thought that was possible, but he saw things from a different perspective than Jan. "If he's with Joey, he's OK. What's the most dangerous thing he could get into? Let's check that first."

The old well had been sealed off, and the cover was intact. So much for the worst threat. The pool seemed alright through the cyclone fence....until Andrew saw the small area of wetness beside the solar cover. "Is the gate locked?" It was then that Jan realized that she'd forgotten to lock it as she and Corby had gone to Andrew and Joey. "Oh my God, I left it open."

The solar cover wouldn't open, the switch that operated its electric motor had corroded. Andrew pried up the solar cover near the wet area, and peered into the pool, the algae growth over the winter obscuring his view. Then he saw the boy's foot the rest of his body almost obscured by the algae. He didn't hesitate, plunging into the pool, icy in the winter despite the solar cover.

It took him only seconds to get to Corby, but his path to the surface was blocked by the solar cover. He worked his way to the edge in the shallow end, where he could force the cover away from the edge, shoving Corby out of the water ahead of him. Jan helped pull Corby's cold motionless body onto the deck, almost catqatonic with fear, and torn by guilt over what she had let happen to her only child.

"Call 911" Andrew yelled at Jan, as he started the CPR he had learned in his water safety instructor and Life Guard certification courses. But Jan didn't. She stayed there, incoherent, sobbing, and shaking.

*Joey, Help. Come to the pool*

Jan Pemberton was going through any parents worst nightmare. She'd felt the cold unmoving body of her only child, and was paralyzed with fear as she watched, depending on a sixteen year old high school sophomore to save her son. And she knew it was up to him. Even by ambulance, the ranch was 20 minutes away from town. Twenty minutes there, loading time, twenty minutes back.....too long. The battle for her sons life would be won or lost long before he could be taken to a hospital.

The boy was almost blue, but Andrew remembered his training. Corby was hypothermic, and no hypothermia victim was ever pronounced dead until they were warm and dead. People had been revived from cold water drowning before, particularly little kids, even if they'd been underwater up to 45 minutes. The cold shielded them from injury from the hypoxia. Corby was in a lot of trouble, but he wasn't dead yet. He continued the CPR, wishing that Jan would go call 911.

Joey arrived at the pool then, having been running flat out for almost a quarter mile. She saw Andrew working on the boy.....*What can I do?*
*I don't know....can you heal him?*
*He's not conscious....I can't make a connection...*
*Can you push the blood through his heart?...Make his lungs pump air in and out?..heat his body up?? Without connecting?*
*Maybe...*

Jan wasn't sure what she expected when Joey joined Andrew as he worked on Corby, but it wasn't what she saw, as Andrew switched to doing rescue breathing while Joey put her hands over Corby's heart and lungs and a golden glow came from them. Corby's chest almost seemed to hum as Joey's eyes closed as if she was looking at something deep within her own mind. Even from three feet away, Jan could feel the heat radiate from Joey's hands.

As she felt Corby start to cough, Joey looked at his eyes. They fluttered open briefly and she was in.....she pushed the medulla to deepen his breathing, strengthening his heartbeat while slowly bringing his temperature back toward normal. He was going to be OK.

The glow of the girl's hands had left iridescent fingerprints on Corby, but he was moving, crying, wanting his mother. As Joey seemed to relax, Jan grabbed her son, looked at both teenagers with fear, and fled with her son into the poolhouse.

"Joey, is there a telephone in there?"

"I don't think so. But she probably has her cell phone."

"Nope, it's over there where she helped me pull Corby out. Let me go speak to her."

Andrew slowly opened the door and quickly saw Jan Pemberton, holding her son, shaking, backed into one of the far corners of the building. He approached her slowly, trying not to appear threatening.

"It's OK Mrs. Pemberton. Corby is going to be OK."

"Wh---what did she do? Wh-what is she."

"She didn't hurt him, Mrs. Pemberton. She helped him. He's OK. The marks will go away in about three days. He'll be fine."

"How do you know? Are you like her? What is she?"

"Joey .....well, the quick version is that she isn't entirely human. One of her ancestors was on the 1947 UFO. Me, I'm just a human, the same as you. As for how I know..., do you remember back three months ago during football season?"

"You...you were that boy they thought had broken his neck, the one that got kidnapped."

"No, I'm the one that broke his neck. Joey kidnapped me so she could heal me. I just stayed hidden for three days, waiting for those same marks to go away."

"But....did she do anything to you?...besides heal you?"

"Well yes," Andrew said with a gentle smile. "She made me fall in love with her, but I don't think she'll have that effect on a two year old....besides...she's already taken."

The smile had its effect as Jan stopped her shaking.

"She might have a cousin or niece though. Maybe I could introduce Corby when he's older...?"

Jan smiled up at him. "Could you get her for me? I'd like to talk to her.."

Joey had been listening at the door and slowly entered, trying not to alarm Jan. As she got near Andrew he reached out and took her hand, pulling her close to him and hugging her around the shoulders. Jan looked at the two, so obviously in love.... neither had caused this, heck, she'd caused it, they'd saved Corby, and by saving him had saved her too.
"Joey, I seem to be making a habit of apologizing to you. I'm so sorry I ran from you like that, so sorry I was so scared of you."

"That's OK Mrs. Pemberton.."
"JAN"
Joey smiled, "That's OK JAN. If I..." and she hesitated looking at Andrew,... "If WE had a child and something like that happened, we'd be terrorized too. We're both glad we could help. The handprints really will go away in three days but it'd be uh....kind of nice if nobody saw them except you and you maybe didn't mention this.....it wouldn't be much fun if the National Enquirer ran a story on us or something."

"Joey, I swear, I'll never tell anyone."

Corby just then seemed to notice the handprints. "Did Joey do this, Mommy?"

Jan looked at him, then, kind of panicky." Well Corby....you see."

"Tinkerbelle did that, Corby.' said Andrew. "She dropped pixie dust on you..."

Joey smiled, and Tinkerbelle briefly flitted around the poolhouse, before exiting through the door in a blizzard of pixie dust.

"I'm going to tell daddy on the phone tonight that I saw Tinkerbelle and she sprinkled pixie dust on me, Mommy!"

Jan smiled, "You do that darling, you do that. Time for you to finish your nap, and me to talk to Joey and Andrew. Thank you two so very much. "

Watching Joey’s excitement over the upcoming dance had been a real joy for Barbara Douglas. In less than a week Joey’s status had gone from a face in an old yearbook that had broken her little boy’s heart to….well, to her future daughter-in-law.

And Barbara could tell when Joey’s eyes lit up looking at the dresses, that it hadn’t really been about the dresses at all. She would have been happy in Levis and Adidas personally, but she really did want to make this dance special for the two of them. Joey believed she owed a dance to Andrew, and she clearly intended to make up for the time she turned him down by making their first real date perfect.

She could tell that this was catching Maria a little bit by surprise and that kind of puzzled Barbara. Even in the short time she’d known Joey it was apparent that Joey approached life with a certain….intensity, she guessed would best describe it. And Barbara was unsurprised that it seemed to be spilling over into getting ready for this dance.

It had been a little disconcerting apparently to Maria though. Barbara suddenly found her wondering just how much of the…intensity of her relationship Joey had shared with her mother. ‘She must know,’ thought Barbara. ‘After all, Maria is her mother, she has to be closer to Maria than she is to me,’ perhaps subconsciously choosing to forget that she’d gotten the information at the point of a gun….

Barbara really had liked Maria. She was friendly, had a good sense of humor, and Barbara really would have liked to get into a real girl-talk session, mother’s version, with her about the two kids, it was just that…the restaurant was so public, and Barbara was so afraid of letting slip something about the Czechoslovakian business in public. The two real talks she’d had about it before had been real private, a car in a deserted park at night and a late-night picnic in the pod chamber. Here they were at a table in a public restaurant, with other tables only four or five feet away. She decided she’d just try to not mention the Czechoslovakian stuff, and if Maria alluded to it, just kind of talk around it.

“Maria, Joey is such a dear. And she looks absolutely breathtaking in that dress.”

‘Breathtaking? Yeah, her father’s going to stop breathing when he sees her in it. And he may stop breathing altogether when he sees Andrew looking at her in it.,’ Maria thought. “Yes, it’s a real change in style for her. She’s usually dresses a lot more conservatively than that.”

“She told us she didn’t go to many dances….”

“Many? Try none. I can’t believe how ga-ga she is over this. She’s never cared at all about school dances before.”

“I think that must be because of Andrew. He asked her once a couple of years ago, and she turned him down. I think she may be trying to make up for that.”

“Barbara, Joey just got over her grounding on Monday. Doesn’t it seem strange to you how…..close they’ve become in that time?”

“You know Maria, I was scared to death of that myself until Monday night, that’s what I was asking Joey about Monday. You remember, when I kept her out after curfew? I’m really sorry about that, by the way, I was just …well, terribly nervous about what was going on between those two, and I had to know. You wouldn’t believe how scared I was until Joey explained it to me.”

“Explained what?”

Now Barbara was getting worried. She knew that Maria knew about Andrew’s healing, and that Joey had told her about that, and probably even that Roger now knew as well, although knowing Joey she was probably to discrete to tell her about Roger being so threatening to her. When Joey forgave you, she really did forgive you. Just as Barbara was sure Joey was never going to tell anyone about the gun, she was pretty sure that no one who wasn’t there would ever hear about what a fool Roger had almost made of himself, not trusting Joey.

But how do you talk about connecting with Joey and seeing all the dreamwalking and the virtual proposal….in a public restaurant. Well, she couldn’t say “dreamwalking” or “connecting,” that was for sure.

“Well, you know, that they kind of hooked up way back during football season.”

“Hooked up?”

"Yeah, and then there was the other stuff..."

"Other stuff?"

Barbara Douglas looked hastily to either side, then lowered her voice….”You know, like when they..spend their nights together.”

“They do what?”

“They get together during the night, ...you know...”

“Joey told you about that?”

“Well,…yes. I mean, it’s no wonder they are so close, they’ve been doing that almost nightly for about three months. I thought you knew.”

“…and you and your husband, you are alright with this?”

Barbara lowered her voice again, and looked around to make sure that no one was listening. “Well to tell the truth, Roger was sort of freaked by the whole thing initially, but Joey and Andrew eventually convinced him it was no big deal, and he’s actually pretty accepting of it right now. I couldn't believe how uptight he was about it at first, personally.”

For the next twenty minutes Barbara Douglas made small talk and sang the praises of Joey Guerin. Maria ate her salad, nodding occasionally, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts.

Barbara was clearly a throwback to the sixties. Even her mom had come to her senses by the nineties. It was amazing the woman wasn’t wearing a tie-dyed dress, singing Woodstock music.

But worse than that, Joey had LIED to her. She’d sworn that she hadn’t broken her grounding to see Andrew. That was criminally stupid enough, just to take the risk that people would associate her with his recovery from the broken neck, but to actually….sleep with him?

By the time Joey got done being grounded, she’d be forty years old, and could make any damn mistake she wanted to. And as for the Douglas kid, if his parents didn’t have sense enough to understand that he couldn’t be seducing underage girls, she and Michael could damn sure get the point across to him.

As the two women said their superficially cordial goodbyes, one left glad that she’d had the chance to meet the mother of someone who she knew would forever be important to her son. The other left the restaurant absolutely determined that the son of that latter-day hippie would never touch her daughter again.

Kate Powers didn't really understand why her supervisor was doing this. Granted, the VPs El Paso trip was well in hand, but still, a personal meeting between herself and the President? How did that fit in her job description? It'd be a decade before she'd be senior enough to transfer to the President's secret service detail, unless they desperately needed a female agent and all the more senior agents got pregnant or something, hardly likely with two of them in their forties and one having just come back from a hysterectomy. It made no sense to Kate but even if her supervisor hadn't ordered her to do this, the President was truly the boss. If he wanted to invite her for tea, she couldn't very well refuse.

The agent at the door looked at her kind of questioningly as she approached the official residence. Kate shrugged her shoulders. She didn't have a clue about this either. David knew her personally, hell they'd dated once, but he nonetheless went through the motions of checking her ID. She handed him her service automatic from her purse, then turned her back as she hiked up her dress to pull out the small backup revolver strapped to her thigh. As she turned his eyes quickly looked up. 'Lecher,' she thought. David's inability to refrain from undressing her with his eyes was why there had never been a second date and why the quick flash of thigh he'd just seen was more than he'd ever seen before, and more than he would likely see again. She took the receipts from him for the two weapons and pocketed them. He opened the door and she went into the residence.

The first lady was sitting at a small table in a reading room, a tea service already in place. She stood up immediately, a warm smile, undoubtedly honed from many political campaigns, coming quickly to her face.

"Agent Powers, so nice to see you."

"A pleasure to see you too, Ma'm," said Kate, realizing she wasn't going to get any answers until someone was ready to give them.

"My husband will be here in a few minutes, he was delayed talking to the Senate majority leader. Would you have some tea?" starting to pour without even waiting for an answer, undoubtedly knowing that Secret Service agents did not do their careers any good by refusing to socialize with the first lady.

"Thank you, Ma'm. That would be quite nice."

"Sugar?"

"No. black....uh,..that's plain, thank you,' said Kate, a coffee drinker whose only idea of tea was iced tea on a hot day. She had barely gotten seated when the door opened, and she rose to her feet as the President entered.

"Sit down, Ms. Powers, sit down. Make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you sir."

"I was talking to your boss a few weeks ago, and your name came up in the conversation. I thought I'd like to get to know you a little better. Betty and I would, that is. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?"

As the President of the United States poured his own tea and listened attentively, Kate briefly described her background, her college education, how she'd decided to enter the Secret Service, and her current duties. The first couple listened attentively, just as if they hadn't already been briefed about this fully already. Kate was junior, but not so junior she didn't know that was how the system worked. The first couple's time was tightly regulated and scripted, and neither had the time to waste to get this information by talking to her. They already had this information. She was being personally evaluated by them for something, and she had no idea what.

Kate was really surprised when the second cups of tea were poured, and the President started asking her about her opinion of current political issues. She answered truthfully, a couple of times going against what she knew to be his position. The first couple looked back and forth at times, keeping up their professional smiles. After the second cup of tea was finished, they thanked her for taking the time to come see them, and the First Lady gently ushered her back to the door, thanking her yet again for coming.

As she handed David the receipts and took back her two weapons, his eyes again seemed to look at her inquiringly. As much to herself as to him she found herself saying, "No idea. I haven't a CLUE what that was about..."

It was almost 6PM by the time Joey and Andrew finished talking with Jan Pemberton. It was clear that Corby was going to be fine. He’d taken his nap and within a couple of hours appeared to have totally recovered…other than the residual pixie dust. Jan had asked a few questions and they’d told her the truth, and she’d quickly recognized the disaster it would be for Joey and Andrew if the truth got out. Together they’d saved her child,…she would never do anything that would hurt them, and they certainly had summer jobs as long as they wanted them. She hugged them both tearfully, but joyfully, as they went to the car, Corby held tightly in her other hand.

Andrew wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Joey tired prior to tonight. Sure, he’d seen her exhausted after a cross country run or basketball game, she never held anything back when she did sports. But that was, he knew, just a short term lactic acidosis from exertion. As she nestled in to the passenger seat she seemed to have a weariness he could feel, even without connecting. He suspected that the effort of saving Corby, of supporting his body before she could make the connection, had been a lot more difficult than she’d let on to Jan, and that the boy’s recovery had taken a lot out of her. It had been hard on her emotionally, too. Even though Corby was awful…busy, it was apparent that Joey liked him a lot, or maybe she just liked all kids. The sun had gone down and an almost full moon had risen above the desert by the time they passed the entry gate to the camp. Andrew heard soft rhythmic breathing coming from the passenger seat before they had gone a mile and looked over to see her eyes closed, her face lit by the moonlight, looking like an angel. He looked back toward the road, listening to her breathing as she quietly slept beside him. ‘Now that’s a sound a guy could easily get used to,’ he thought.

The high desert of New Mexico gets cold in the winter, and for all its efficiency as far as gas mileage, or perhaps even because of it, the car had an unimpressive heater. Maybe it was just her presence next to him that was somehow steaming up the windows of the car, but as he turned the defrost on full, the heat output to the passenger compartment dropped accordingly. Despite the coldness of the little car, Andrew felt quite warm enough as he pulled the car over to the side of the road. As he took his jacket off and gently placed it over her, his hand brushed against her shoulder and he was surprised when the connection slowly formed with a sleeping Joey…

Joey had once told him about dream-orbs when they’d talked in the pod chamber about dreamwalking, but he’d never really expected to see one. Joey always came into his dream, where they’d walk the beach together. It had never really occurred to him that Joey would have a dream-orb of her own, separate from the one he shared with her, but it sort of made sense. Somehow he moved toward the orb, Joey’s orb, realizing that he didn’t know how to actively dreamwalk, but wondering if he could just see what her dream was….

As he entered the dream-orb he saw her and froze, suddenly afraid that he was doing something terrible, invading her privacy in a way that he had no right to do as he saw her sitting in the rocking chair with the moonlight coming through the skylight, her robe dropped to her waist and her right breast pale in the moonlight. He started to retreat from the orb but he froze in disbelief when he saw the small baby suckling at her left breast. She rocked with the child beside the bed, her eyes going from the child to the man asleep in the bed beside her, the man Andrew recognized as himself.


Image with partial nudity not posted at moderator's request. http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n53/ ... 073328.jpg

When he saw her look at the man and the child it was as if her eyes claimed them…..her every expression told the same story…they were her family, ….Andrew knew that he was part of her family…and he knew then with absolute certainty that he was welcome in this dream.

He watched in total awe as the baby moved softly against her, making small mewing sounds as it nuzzled her, her face smiling down at it, filled with tenderness, radiant with happiness, filled with love.

And then she turned her eyes to the sleeping man, the man whose hair matched that of the infant, and the same smile, the same wistful look possessed her face. She was radiant there in the moonlight, her pale breasts larger than he’d seen them before, at least larger than what had been barely concealed by the string bikini. He watched as she smiled while the child nursed, the areola of her right breast slowly trickling droplets of milk down onto her lower breast, where she would blot them with a cloth as their child pressed greedily on the other side.

Andrew was not sure he’d ever seen anyone look as happy as Joey looked there in the moonlight, and he was sure he’d never felt happier in his life. He understood Joey had chosen him as her lifemate. He had no idea why he’d been so fortunate, but her dream would be their dream, and he would do anything he could to make the dream a reality. He looked one last time at the dream orb, trying to burn that memory into his brain for all eternity.

As the connection gradually faded he found himself looking again at Joey, covered by his jacket, sleeping quietly in the moonlight. The real Joey was a few years younger, her body a few pounds lighter, not yet having to recover from the changes necessary to give their child life and to nourish it. Andrew’s heart was racing, his eyes were watering, he fought the urge to hold her and pull her tightly against him, wanting her to rest. She was his now, he knew. his to care for, his to protect, his to look after.

He knew how much family meant to Joey, she had for years hidden herself from most of the world, fearful of the secret being discovered. Her family had been her refuge, her place of safety, the one place she felt sure she could be accepted. But she would give up her family if need be, he knew, for their family, for him and the children she would bear him. He looked out in the desert, but did not really see the beauty of the desert under the moonlight. His eyes were looking far beyond the desert, to a future time, when he would live that dream with Joey.



She woke up, realizing as she did so that the car was no longer moving. Andrew's jacket was covering her and she inhaled deeply, breathing the scent of him deep within herself.

It had been such a lovely dream. She wasn't sure why she had dreamed that..... Maybe it was because of Corby's close call. She had heard how badly Jan and her husband had wanted a child, the examinations and surgeries..., she couldn't imagine a loss like that, losing a child. Thank God Andrew had found him, pulled him out in time.

She looked at Andrew who seemed to be looking off into the desert through the driver's window. 'How I love him,' she thought.

She wished he'd really been there, in the dream with her. She wished he could have seen her dream of their future, felt the feelings she felt as she looked at her child and its father.

It had almost felt like he was there, but that happened a lot lately, when she was close to him, like in this car. She was so glad he was here when she'd awakened from that dream. It was getting harder all the time, to awaken from dreams or dreamwalks with Andrew, awakening to a sense of loss, loss that he wasn't really there with her.

Particularly with this last dream, she thought. Had he not been there when she had awakened from that dream she wasn't sure she could have borne the loneliness that came from the loss of the beauty of that dream, the emptiness of being without him..

"Sorry I nodded off,' she said knowing it was a total lie. Her only regret was that it wasn't actually Andrew lying in that bed beside the rocking chair. "I must have worn myself out with Corby. That was way too close...another minute or two and I don't think there would have been anything I could do. I'm sure glad you found him."

Andrew seemed a little distracted, looking out at the moonlit desert.
"Corby was really lucky you were there," he said. 'And I am so very lucky to have you in my life...'

"Why are we stopped?"

"I stopped to put my jacket on you...I thought you might be cold...then, I guess I just wanted to look out at the desert for awhile....just thinking about...how happy you make me."

The kiss was softer and gentler than Joey had expected it to be, although the small car was certainly not designed for passion in any event. As the connection flared, she felt a flood of love, not passion but almost awe. Somehow she just knew. Even before she saw the tear roll slowly down his cheek, she knew.

*You saw my dream, didn't you?.....Andrew, I'm so glad....I could have never described to you how beautiful it was....I wouldn't have known how*

*Joey....I saw OUR dream. God, it was beautiful....you were so beautiful like that...I don't think I've ever seen such beauty....I love you so much....*

A few minutes later the little car turned back onto the road toward Roswell. It was possible to safely drive a car with your left hand and hold hands with your girlfriend with your right hand if you were careful and skillful enough. But you might not want to try it on your driving exam, he told her. Driving Examiners could be such old fogies about such things....