What If? Ch. 04

Saying goodbye to family is never easy, Mariah has only Kitty to rely upon, but even Kitty has her own motives, and she is coming up with a plan to try and help the woman who saved her.

Mariah did not want to do what had to be done, and it was only with Ian and Kitty by her side that she even managed to make it to the reading of the wills for Tad and Charlene. They met Trisha and Jake outside the lawyer's office, and with Mariah dressed in black, Kitty dressed in a grey outfit, they did look a somber bunch. They all went in to sit with the Lawyer as he went over the joint wills of the people who had mattered most to Mariah and who had now passed on.

Tad's will was complex, with a significant portion of his wealth staying in Scotland to support his extended family, however, he had a clause in the will that Charlene retained all wealth and value obtained outside of the British Isles. That amounted to a significant sum that was now passed onto Charlene.

Her will was set up that 100% of her worldly goods went to Mariah Catherine Douglas, which meant that Mariah was now very wealthy, with a number of properties to her name and no need to really work another day in her life.

After the reading of the wills, they went to the final place for Tad and Charlene. A funeral parlour where according to their wishes, both bodies were to be cremated, and their ashes combined, then scattered over the sea west of Kintyre so the two spirits would be forever joined in the space between their ancestral countries.

Mariah refused to cry, or show much emotion at all, she sat quietly as the service was read, listening and nodding where appropriate. The final pieces were read, she rose, and with a final placement of her hand over each casket, she turned, and with Kitty trailing behind her, Mariah left.

Kitty followed Mariah as she walked out of the funeral parlour, unsure of where her heroine was going, but not willing to leave her as she could see Mariah was in deep pain over the loss. She knew some of that pain, as she was hurting over the knowledge that JJ and her babies were gone to her as well, but this loss to Mariah was much deeper. Kitty had lost her parents years before, Mariah effectively had just lost her second set of parents.

She trailed behind Mariah as she walked down the path to the sidewalk, then began to walk down the road towards town. Always just a few steps behind her, not wanting to crowd her, but unwilling to let her be alone and helpless against the world.

They eventually found themselves standing on the shore of Puget Sound, and Mariah sat on a bollard beside the dock that she had found, watching the grey clouds scuttling across the sky, the waves slowly lapping at the shore, and as the rain began to fall, Mariah began to cry.

Kitty quietly came up to stand beside her, and put her hand on Mariah's shoulder, only to then find her arms full of her duplicate as Mariah fell apart on her. This was something Kitty knew how to handle, and she gathered Mariah into her arms, sitting down on the wet planks, and just held her as Mariah cried into her jacket, heedless of the now pouring rain that soaked them both, Mariah just kept on weeping.

Kitty rocked slowly, holding her copy as Mariah cried out her loss, Kitty also shed tears, letting her own loss leak out, but remaining strong, as she had to do so many times for her children, and for JJ when he had fallen apart on her in the past. She knew how to provide comfort, and she did, giving Mariah an outside strength to hold on to until she could regain her composure again.

She did not know how long she sat on the wet deck, holding Mariah in the pouring rain, but at some point, she knew Trisha and Jake were also there, as a warm woollen blanket was draped around both of the women to begin to keep some of their body heat against the cold dampness. Then Mariah was gently lifted off of Kitty and Jake carried her back to the car as Trisha helped Kitty to her feet and back to the car as well.

Kitty sat in the back, holding onto a now shivering Mariah, both of them wrapped in the blanket as the car was driven somewhere different. Kitty had no idea where they went, but she trusted that these other two knew what they were doing for Mariah, and as such, for her as well. She noticed lights outside and the car pulled into a long driveway beside a large house, lit up with lights against the darkness now falling outside.

Kitty helped Mariah out of the car and half-carried her duplicate into the house, guided by Trisha and Jake, and then into an expansive bedroom where she sat Mariah on the edge of the bed, then began to pull off the soaking clothing from her as she heard the sound of bath water running.

"I've made it quite hot, you both better get in there, or you'll get sick as well, Kitty. We'll be outside if you need anything else." Trisha said, then with a gentle kiss on her cold cheek, left Kitty to finish the task of stripping her duplicate and caring for her.

Once she had finished peeling the wet clothing off of Mariah, Kitty guided her to the bathtub, a large one that she thought looked more like a small pool than a tub, and guided her duplicate into the steaming water. After Mariah had settled, still crying softly, Kitty swiftly peeled off all of her own soaking wet clothes and slid into the hot water with a wince at the heat, but then pulled Mariah to her and held her as Mariah continued to cry.

The water slowly began to cool as Kitty held Mariah, feeling the cold in her skin and in her soul slowly warming as the water penetrated their bodies with exterior warmth. After a time, she reached over for a cloth, and after soaping it up, began to gently wash Mariah's neck and shoulders, letting the sensation alone begin to sink in, as this was something she enjoyed the feel of, so she knew Mariah would also enjoy the feeling.

"I'm glad you're here. You understand this." Mariah finally said, looking sideways at Kitty as she continued to slowly rub the wet soapy cloth over her neck and shoulders.

"I don't understand much, Mariah. Except that you need help, and I am glad to be able to offer you even a small piece of comfort." Kitty said, then tenderly kissed her duplicate on the cheek.

She helped Mariah out of the warm water and gently towelled her dry, then waited as Mariah did the same for her, then the two identical women walked out of the bathroom and back to the bedroom. Kitty went to sit on the bed, but Mariah kept walking. "Where are you going?"

"This is our home, Kitty. I need to eat, and you probably need to as well. Come on." Mariah said, opening the door.

"You said before we should not walk around naked though." Kitty replied.

"This is home, and I am comfortable here in my skin. Are you OK with that?"

Kitty nodded as she got back to her feet, and followed her nude duplicate as she walked out of the bedroom and down the warmly carpeted hallway to the kitchen area where Jake was busy cooking up some food while Trisha sat at the table, idly spinning a glass half-full of wine.

She looked up as they both approached, and after a double-take, sighed and then rose and smiled at them.

"I don't think I'm going to get used to there being two of you." Trisha said as she got to her feet and walked up to give first Mariah, then Kitty a solid hug. She could see the differences, mostly in hair length and the fact that Kitty was trimmed, while Mariah was cleanly shaven. Other than that, the two women were identical, they even walked the exact same way.

Mariah and Kitty both sat side by side at the table, and Trisha got them both a steaming mug of coffee, then watched as they both put the same two spoons of sugar, and as best she could tell, one after the other put the same amount of milk, and stirred their coffee with the same clockwise motion, the spoons were even put down at the same angle and place. Neither women realized that Trisha was observing them so intently, but it was fascinating.

Jake served them both up a plate full of pasta and ground beef, a simple meal that would warm them up after the cold dampness of the heavy rainfall they had both been in. He then sat beside Trisha, nursing a cup of coffee, and in silence, they watched both copies of Mariah eat in an identical manner. If it had been a mirror image, it would not have been more surreal. This was not a mirror image of each woman, they were identical. Both left hands reached at nearly the same time, right hands moved, it was unconscious movement.

It was only at the end of the meal, when both women reached at the same time to pick up a glass of water and while drinking, their eyes slid around to see each other here they realized they had been mimicking each other precisely, where things broke apart into a fit of giggles. Then Kitty splashed her water on Mariah's bare chest, who gasped, and then deliberately poured her glass over Kitty's head, causing another cry of amused anguish.

They sat there, smiling at each other, the tension broken for the moment, as Jake got a towel for each of them to dry off with.

Next morning, as Kitty was wandering around the large house looking at everything, Mariah sat nude on the enclosed deck, enjoying the heat from the concealed heat lamps that had been installed almost a year ago when this had become her habit.

Kitty wandered around, checking out the five large bedrooms, number six was where Trisha and Jake were still sleeping, so she left that alone, she explored the den and library, the three bathrooms, large kitchen area and lounge, sunken living room, and then eventually made her way to sit by Mariah on the deck, feeling the warmth from the lamps as the heat saturated her skin also.

"This is nice." she finally said, Mariah turned to her and smiled. "I like to sit here and just think, it helped me a lot before. I'm hoping it will help me now."

She narrowed her eyes as she looked at Kitty. "What's the matter?"

"I miss him." Kitty said, then a tear ran down her cheek.

"You can't be serious?" Mariah said, grabbing Kitty's hands.

"I am. It's not like you think, Mariah. I had known JJ for twelve years. You only knew him for a few cruel months. I grew up with him, I learned him, I knew him. All of his moods, his loss, his pain, and his despair. He didn't want what happened to me to come true, but he couldn't stop it." Kitty said, tears freely running down her cheeks as she spoke.

"He wanted me to love him, to grow old with him, to be his wife and his companion. The system failed him as much as it failed me. He figured if he bought my writ he could protect me the only way he knew how, by keeping me close to him, as that would keep me safe. FedSec ruined that once you came, as they violated that last trust he had. I thank God everyday that he helped you, because I would have died in that building otherwise." Kitty continued as she looked into the eyes of her twin.

"I don't sleep well without him. I miss his breathing. I miss his voice, and I miss my children. I know that in a lot of ways they would continue to be free where I would not, but I loved them, and I do miss them." Kitty bowed her head and her shoulders shook as Mariah pulled her into an embrace.

"I've never had children, so I don't try to understand that loss, Kitty. I can understand what you feel about your JJ. I am sure to you he was as good as he could be. I just cannot get past how bad my JJ became. He killed Charlene's unborn child." Mariah said, hugging Kitty to her.

"That's not the JJ I knew, Mariah. My JJ would never do such a thing, he was a good man, as good as he could be under the system we lived in." Kitty said.

"No, that was my JJ. I never knew him before I found him at a party. I fell in lust with him, and went through hell to be with him, he enjoyed hurting me. But that was my version, not yours. I will try to understand yours because it sounds like he was so different than my version, I almost wish I did try to get to know him better." Mariah said, looking into Kitty's eyes, and then hugging her again.

That evening, Kitty was introduced to her first hot tub, and she enjoyed it immensely, sitting in the hot bubbling water with Mariah, Trisha and Jake as they enjoyed the sensations bubbling all around them. Kitty declined the invite to get intimate with Trisha and Jake, but she pushed Mariah over to them with some force, as she could feel her duplicate needed that touch, and for the first time since she had come across, Kitty slept alone, enjoying the ability to just sleep for the sake of sleeping. She luxuriated in the feeling of lying in the big bed, all alone, rolling all over it, pulling pillows all around her and burying herself in the king size mattress with pillows and blankets heaped high, she was comfortable, but, she was still alone.

...

"Professor Scott, may I please have a talk with you?" Kitty said as she came into the lab where Ian was working on modifications to the Cannon.

"What do you need, Kitty?" he asked, putting down the calibration unit and turning to face her. Kitty was dressed as Mariah had insisted, now decked out to show off her body to her best measure. A blouse that had a decent v cut to show off some cleavage, her breasts wrapped in a lacy bra, a pencil straight skirt down to just above knee length and moderate high heels. Kitty had been getting used to dressing more proper over the past week, just as she had been getting used to the highly sexual relationship she was enjoying with her duplicate.

She pulled out a notebook and began to explain an idea she had come up with. As both Ian and Mariah had said on many occasions, she was not stupid, just lacked the same education Mariah had. Kitty had left school at Grade 7 as per the Chattel act, to be a proper slave for her JJ. This was normal in her world.

She had done what any curious person would do in her place, she investigated her owner. She still considered Mariah to be her owner until such time as that changed. She had dug into her history as far as was written, discovering details about her early life, the accident, how she had been raised by Charlene. Then her meeting JJ a couple of years ago and the horrible things that had occurred, leading up to his death and then the trauma that surrounded Charlene's miscarriage and the odd triple relationship that had developed between the two women and the Scotsman.

She knew that it had been JJ driving the yellow Corolla that had t-boned the car and killed Mariah's parents. She then began to investigate his history, even though the trail went cold with his death. His own marriage had been in the process of collapse at the time, which was the presumed reason he had been so high on drugs and alcohol when he chose to drive that Sunday morning so long ago.

She had explored the basics of the Dimension Cannon as well, exploring Mariah's notes and the 21 letters that had been sent to detail how the Cannon worked. Kitty knew by the third letter what she had to do, but she kept reading and examining to make sure this was the right course of action.

"If we make these calibrations, the Cannon will project backwards along a timestream, to a fixed point. You are aware of this?" Ian asked her.

Kitty nodded. "I know. But this will be Mariah's timestream, not mine. My timestream is terminated now, or shared with hers. I don't have the words to explain it better right now."

"I can fully understand. The words to fully explain all of this do not even exist in the language as of yet." Ian said with a smile. Then he looked at the final page, and glanced back up at Kitty.

"What do you intend to do?"

"Mariah cannot change her timestream. Fixed points are immutable by the person of interest. I am not Mariah, therefore, I can change her fixed point. I can make a change that will be for the better. I miss him, Ian, I miss him terribly. My JJ is gone, her JJ lived for a long time here, but he is also gone now. I want him back, I can make the change to prevent the accident by distracting JJ on the Saturday night so he never takes that drive."

"You know, that if you make that type of change, everything upstream will change. All of this might even cease to exist." Ian said quietly.

Kitty leaned forward and put her hand on Ian's knee, fingernails digging in. "In all honesty, Professor Scott, this device is too dangerous to keep functional. I can make this change, and this will not violate Causality, because the change will ensure the device never gets made, therefore, the timeline will stop looping, it will self-seal, and every change that has happened will roll back to where it should be."

"Mariah will never allow it. She barely understands this as it is. She will not let you make a trip without her." Ian said.

Kitty stood up and looked at him. "I am Mariah, can you really deny that?"

"You are a parallel Mariah. You are not our Mariah." Ian said, also getting to his feet with her notebook in hand and beginning to code in different sequences into the calibration systems.

"What are you doing?" Kitty asked him.

Ian ignored her and turned to the team. "Everybody, we're doing a full power cycle. Back to green, now." As the students all stepped back away from the centre, Ian triggered the power cycle, getting the 21 cyclotrons to begin spin-up.

He turned to her. "Changing room is over there, get into the bodysuit and be ready. We'll be at power in ten minutes. I know your mind, which is just like Mariah's. This is what she has wanted to do. She is unable to change her own fixed point. You just might be able do it, because it is not your native timestream. Now get going."

He then went and began to explain to the team what was going to happen as he continued to make adjustments while the Cyclotrons began to ramp up to full power. Kitty hurried over to the changing booth and peeled out of all of her clothes. She pulled the purple bodysuit off of it's hanger and slid it on, making sure it fit comfortably. By the time she came out in the figure hugging suit, the Cyclotrons were already at twenty MeV and still building. A blue column of light was visible in the centre of the rings, the portal was forming.

She walked over to the raceway that has been built into the unit so you could walk safely through the hard radiation zone without injury and into the passage, then turned to Ian.

"Professor, do you need that notebook any more?" She shouted at him over the building roar of Cyclotrons. He handed her the notebook with an absent shake of his head while he watched the indicators climbing.

"Everything is coded in, you can't take it with you. Nothing immaterial will transit properly." His eyes went wide as she deftly unzipped the suit, baring her breasts, and slipped the notebook against her stomach, then zipped the suit up again.

"That might just work." he said as she came over and with both arms wrapped round him, kissed him passionately, the most affection this other Mariah had ever shown him since her appearance a week ago.

"I wrote the letters to Mariah. It is my handwriting. I recognized it when I began to read them. This is what is meant to be, Professor. If I never see you again, thank you for everything you have done." Kitty said, then released him before walking back to the raceway leading to the portal.

"Seventy MeV and rising. Cascade in full operation. Calibrations complete and balanced." She heard, but was focused on the mission. She had to be conscious of when she was going to go. To the Sunday of the car accident. More specifically, the night before.

"Ninety MeV. Get ready for transit." Power reported as everybody else backed away to give her room and to ensure no blowback radiation would effect them.

"Kitty!" She turned to see Mariah running towards her, only to be intercepted and then bodily grabbed by Ian around her stomach and lifted off her feet to prevent her running into the danger zone.