Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story

of that man skilled in all ways of contending,

the wanderer, harried for years on end”

― Homer, The Odyssey

Bella had seen him around town before: at the park, in the gym, hanging at the bar of the new restaurant downtown.  Always fleeting eye contact; then back to the routine of their lives. They never spoke until that afternoon when their paths officially crossed: he had casually dropped by Dina and Michael’s condominium to say hi. 

Don seemed friendly enough, liked equally by her brother, Michael, and Dina, her sister-in-law – and perhaps liked especially more by Dina’s roommate and sister, Nina. When he grabbed Bella’s hand for an introduction, she was momentarily dazzled by his luminous green eyes and charming smile. 

Over time, they ran into each other more often in town: at the corner store, at welcome wagons for new neighbors, even at parties where Bella didn’t think they’d have a mutual acquaintance. The latest encounter was at the local astronomy club. She was surprised not only to see him there but to learn he owned a telescope.  To Bella, Don seemed more likely the type to own his own gym equipment. 

He wore down her defenses in small ways: grabbing a coffee after the club, offering her a ride home, and finally asking for help assembling a new telescope he just bought. She finally relented and agreed to help. As she walked into his condo, Bella did learn her assumption was half-correct; Don’s weight press machine sat in his dining area – untouched and collecting dust.  

“I started to set it up on the rooftop terrace. It’s a great place for stargazing,” he said while following her up the stairs. “What an amazing view.”

Bella’s skin prickled with goosebumps. Was it the cool nighttime air? Or the sneaking suspicion Don’s comment about “the view” pertained more to staring at her backside as they ascended to the rooftop than the celestial bodies in the sky?

“Hopefully we can set this up in time for the meteor shower,” Bella commented as she attached the tube to the mount. She focused on securing the rings instead of the sensation of Don’s eyes scanning her body. 

“Um, did you want it pointed in this direction?” Bella turned her head and spotted Don by his outdoor bar, fixing them drinks for the meteor shower. 

“Isn’t that where we’ll see the show?” Don asked, setting out two glasses on the bartop before tossing an ice cube into the mixer.

“The ‘show’ is up in the sky, Don.” Bella’s smile teased him. “Not so much at my brother’s condo.”

Don handed her the glass and they toasted to the meteor shower. “We’ll see how much of the show we can catch anyway.”

Bella’s stomach clenched slightly. She wasn’t sure if it was Don’s words with his leering or the drink that made her feel anxious. She smiled nervously, fingernails tapping on the glass. “Do you want to take a look through the telescope? I can show you how to find the Andromeda Galaxy. You just need to find Cassiopeia.”

Don set his glass on an adirondack endtable. He grabbed Bella’s glass from her hand and smiled. “Isn’t that your daughter’s name?”

“No, it’s Cassand–”  Bella was stunned by Don’s lips on hers. Her eyes flew open as she felt his arms snake around her waist. Her hands shoved against his chest. Bella stepped back and slapped his cheek.

Don stepped back, giving her space, and simply shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for tryin’, right?”

“I’m married, Don.”

“So?” He flashed a smile, those flirtatious green eyes moving closer to her again. “No one needs to know. No one can see us up here, either.”

She tried to look away, yet something was so hypnotic about him. Was it the moonlight? The shooting star that zipped by in the distance?  Bella didn’t push him away this time and allowed him another kiss. 

The doorbell rang.

“Shit,” Don muttered as he pulled away from Bella’s embrace. “Let me go get rid of whoever that is.” He raced down the stairs and back into the condo.

Bella let out a shaky breath. Her hand flew to her head as her heart pounded. What in the world was she doing? She needed to go home. 

“I’ll just tell Don that was nice, but we’ve got to set boundaries. We’ll check out the meteor shower and then I’ll go home to Mortimer.”  And wipe away from memory that forbidden kiss, she thought errantly.

She moved toward the telescope, looking at the Milky Way and adjusting the lens focus. In her view of the night sky, a bluish light flickered, zipping faster than a star.  She blinked and rubbed her eyes. Stars didn’t move like that. It may have been a stray meteor, a little earlier than scheduled.  

Bella looked through the lens again, annoyed by the flood light on Don’s deck obscuring the stars. She turned to see if he came back from downstairs and was startled by the blue light pointing down at her from the sky.

Hands trembled at her sides in fear. Her stomach dropped. She looked up at the metallic disc hovering above her. Mortimer said he once spoke to scientists who proclaimed there was life beyond our solar system. He scoffed at their stories. If only he could see he was wrong.

The flying object hummed mechanically, lifting her off her feet. Before she had a chance to scramble for purchase, to resist the pull of the beam, Bella felt her body rocketed upward by the blue beam, into the spaceship, and into darkness.

~~~~

Don yanked the front door open. He huffed in annoyance to see his neighbor, Dina, on his doorstep. “I can’t help you and Michael with whatever you need. You caught me at a bad time,” he muttered.

Dina grinned and glanced upward. “So I saw. Any luck?”

“Not with you here,” Don grumbled, fingers drumming on the door impatiently. 

A bright flash of blue light caught their attention and they looked skyward.  Dina smiled while Don’s mouth hung open, watching the metallic unidentified object hurtle away into the night sky. 

Don raced to the rooftop with Dina following closely behind him. “Bella! Did you see that from—” He scanned the empty deck, bewildered at Bella’s sudden disappearance. Not a trace that she was even here.

He turned back to Dina, bewilderment written across his face. A cunning smile spread on Dina’s lips. “Think it’s a good time to talk now, Don?”

Chapter Text

“Ah how shameless – the way these mortals blame the gods. 

From us alone they say come all their miseries

yes but they themselves with their own reckless ways

compound their pains beyond their proper share.”

― Homer, The Odyssey

She was floating, weightless in the air.

“Oh, no, this is all wrong.”

A strange voice spoke, nasal and stilted, yet melodious in cadence, grounding her out of the ethereal nothingness.

“The specimen doesn’t have the exterior appendage to extract the DNA material. Am I still supposed to probe it?” The voice continued to question with seemingly no one to answer.

Bella blinked, trying to focus her vision. Everything was still white and metallic, blurred around the edges. A world of chrome and blinding lights.

“And it already has eggs!” The strange voice bemoaned while reading the scans. “Major problem here.”

She turned her head in the direction of the voice, not quite male or female in tone, chattering away near her. She wasn’t floating (as she at first presumed) and realized she was very horizontal on a table. 

The strange smell of gunpowder and hot metal mixed with raspberries stung her nostrils. There was the faint blip of a monitor that would beep erratically, defying all sense of rhythm.  Her eyes focused on the figure who spoke and fussed about her.  She noted its green skin with deep black eyes.

“Where am I?” She was surprised to hear her own voice utter the words aloud, soft and raspy from the metallic air. Her hands tried to move and were met with immediate resistance. Glancing downward she saw nothing around her wrists, yet nevertheless her hands were restrained at her sides.  

The green creature stopped his movements and turned to stare at Bella. He blinked twice - first one set of eyelids, then the second.  “Oh, great, and it talks too.”  

Then he continued to amble over to a control station. The being fiddled with some buttons on a panel causing a cacophony of bleeps and whirs before a disembodied voice echoed into the room:

“Receiving transmission on home base Sixam. Articulate your query, Number Thirteen.”

The creature known as Number Thirteen leaned toward a speaker on the panel and pressed a button with his slender finger. “Yes, this is Thirteen. Your instructions were not clear. This obtained specimen is the one at the described coordinates given. But it lacks the proper anatomy for gestation.”

Gestation? Bella’s ears perked up. She attempted to lift her head. Straining her neck, she looked down further to her legs.  They, too, were restrained as she lay on a cold metal slab.  

Her eyes wandered around the curved, silver dome of the ceiling. “Am I in a…spaceship?” 

The creature who responded to the moniker of Thirteen waved his hand dismissively, shushing her as he awaited instructions from the panel.

“Then use her for what you can for experimentation,” came in the voice from the transmission. “Collect a DNA sample anyway.”

“Yes, but this specimen doesn’t have—...And they disconnected already.” Thirteen clucked his tongue, shaking his green head in disgust.  “Typical. Hive mind, my tuchus!”

She couldn’t help but smile a little at the creature using a very familiar term like “tuchus.” Bella shook her head in dismay. Thirteen seemed to have absorbed enough knowledge about life on earth, yet couldn’t have the decency to answer any of her questions.  

“Excuse me?” she spoke up hesitantly, a restrained hand attempted to wave from the metal cuff at her wrist. “Do you speak Simlish? Can you tell me where I am?”

“Yes, I do. And you’re aboard vessel number 671020844. Not that it should matter to your kind.” Thirteen cackled momentarily and began to punch a myriad of buttons on the panel.   “We’ll be done with the probing after we’ve done the examination. And then I must collect a DNA sample.” 

Various instruments popped up from the metal slab and out of the ceiling. The instruments began to buzz and whirr as they inspected Bella’s vitals.  “Then we’ll deposit you back into your usual habitat.”

Probing? A chill swept over her. Her mind finally pieced together the clues: green skin, metallic surfaces, white lights – and the offhanded comment about “hive minds.”  

She was abducted by aliens! Bella quickly glanced down again at her body, thankfully still clad in her signature red dress. She would need to escape before she was potentially disrobed and then dissected like a frog.

“I don’t know if a probing is truly necessary, is it?” Bella inquired trying to mask her nervousness. The machines beeped and whirred steadily, increasing in tempo with her heartbeat. “Thirteen? Is that your name?”  

“We don’t have names.” Thirteen moved closer to her and examined the jammed devices. He grumbled and muttered to himself before answering her. “We’re a hive. We go by numbers. Mine is ‘Thirteen’ because I’m Pollination Technician Thirteen.”

“Pollination…technician?” 

“Yes, part of our queen’s grand efforts to save our species — and yours.”  His long hand made a fist and slammed onto the panel of the device in an effort to resolve the jam.

Bella’s head turned in surprise as his statement. “Pardon?”

“We’re both a dying species.” Thirteen sighed and rolled his black eyes – or Bella presumed it was an eyeroll based on the exasperated expression of his humanoid features. “You need better temperament, we need a more hospitable environment with adaptable DNA – like yours.  We collect you specimens, impregnate with a combination of our spliced DNA, and then off you go.”

Bella’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “Are you going to—?”

“No, you don’t have the right equipment for impregnation. We already have the eggs, as do you. But we can take blood samples for reference.” Thirteen felt along her hair. “Although finding a vein will prove to be trying.”

“Or you could just let me go.” Bella offered, attempting to be jovial.  She watched with amusement as Thirteen attempted to seek out a vein in a hair follicle. “No one will be the wiser. Put me back down on that rooftop from where you snatched me up.”

Thirteen dropped the strand of hair and stared at Bella with his black eyes. “They would know.”

“Would they though?” She attempted to lay on the charm. A slight smile, an upper lilt of her voice – anything to persuade him. “Hey, what if you came down for a while? Met the people in Pleasantview? I’d bet they’d love to see someone like you.”

Thirteen paused and grew still as if he were suddenly reflective on the situation.  “Ah. I do love the idea of Earth.” His long fingers danced in the air while contemplating his fantasy of the planet. “Always wanted to visit.”

Bella shrugged and smiled warmly, enticing him with the promised bait of her home. “No time like the present, right? So why don’t you set this spaceship thingy down and we–”

“Can’t do that,” Thirteen stated as he released her restraints with the push of a button. “I still need to collect a sample from you first. Don’t move, Specimen.”

Bella huffed. As Thirteen drew closer, she waited for the right moment. While he searched in vain for a place on her skin to draw blood, she used his distraction to grab onto his shoulders. With a shift yank, she threw his body downward and aside. She leapt over him, to the ground.

Feet on the floor finally. She ran. And then she hesitated. She had no clue where to go. Heading to the control panel, she pressed various buttons, frantic to do something to land the spacecraft.

“Don’t touch that! You don’t know what you are doing!” Thirteen cried out.

The rumble from the ship rattled both passengers off their feet. Bella sprawled to the floor as Thirteen attempted to climb toward the control panel to mitigate the mess she’d made.

Steam erupted in hissing trails. The bolts of the ship’s interior walls popped and protruded with the pressure. Sirens began to sound with flashing strobe lights.

“And now we’re going to crash,” Thirteen commented blithely, “prepare yourself for impact, Specimen!”

The ship careened sideways. Bella went airborne. Thirteen was completely knocked off his feet. He fell forward into the panel, grunting with the impact of soft tissue on sharp metallic edges.

After skidding and sliding, the spacecraft’s erratic maneuvers finally stopped with a resounding scrape of metal against rock.  Bella pulled herself out of the alcove in the wall, her ears ringing from the impact; Thirteen held his side, a hand pressed to a spot where his jumpsuit was now stained a deep blue.

Thirteen held out his free hand to Bella. “Are you hurt, Specimen?”

Quickly examining her limbs, she shook her head. “Just some scratches, I think.”

Thirteen nodded. “That makes one of us.” His hand continued to clutch his torso at the site of seeping blue fluids – blood, Bella presumed – and began to limp toward a large panel in the wall.

“Come along then,” he pressed a few buttons, creating an exit route through a hatch, and motioned for Bella to follow him. “Watcher only knows what forsaken planet you’ve crashed us onto.”

Chapter Text

“It is unfortunate for us, 

that, of some of the greatest men, 

we know least, and talk most.”

― Homer, The Odyssey

They crawled out of the crater and into the desolate landscape.  It was night; there was very little to see on the ground. Bella squinted at the darkened shapes on the horizon. Could be rocks, could be sleeping life forms on an alien planet. The only comfort was the familiar night sky.  Even from another planet, the positions of the stars in the sky reminded her of home.

Thirteen pulled out a compass from his jumpsuit and slowly turned.  “North may be our best bet.”

“Do you know where we are?”

“Hopefully, ” Thirteen replied, placing the compass back into his pocket. “If what the panel said before we lost power on the ship, we are right near where one of my cousins retired.”

Bella looked curiously at Thirteen. “You have family?”

Thirteen checked his wound; the bleeding seemed to stop, but his jumpsuit was stained a deep cerulean on his midsection. “We are a hive mind, Specimen. We do have familial ties even if we don’t have what you Sims call a ‘Family.’”

Bella followed behind her former captor. He was leading the way to another like him. Bella wondered how much that would be in her favor. However, what choice was there? Be left to her own devices on a strange desert planet?

“So you don’t actually have families from where you come from?” she asked while trying to have her legs keep pace with him.  For an injured alien, Thirteen still moved with agility and speed in the darkness over the terrain.  Bella was carefully scaling over boulders while Thirteen took it all in stride – literally.

“We have our One True Mother – the Queen – and we are either Colony Drones or Pollination Technicians.” Thirteen’s head whipped side to side, surveying their options in both directions. “Terms that you Terrans use like ‘father’ and ‘mother’ are essentially inconsequential beyond reproduction and propagation of our species.”

Bella paused in her steps and allowed herself a moment to view the beauty of the night sky.  She could easily spot Orion. “Are you sure this is the way to your…. Wait, how can he be a cousin if you don’t use family terms?”

Thirteen grumbled. “You simple minded creatures. Cousin is the best equivalent of the word for you to understand.  He was the one who trained me in my duties as Pollination Technician.” He winced and touched his wound again, deftly inspecting the edges with his long green fingers. Finding a nearby rock, he rested as he continued speaking. “He was quite gifted. Rumor has it he retired to this planet – for love! Whatever that means.”

Bella leaned closer to examine his wound as best as she could in the darkness. “Is that your blood?”

Thirteen nodded and gritted his teeth as Bella did her best to carefully inspect the lacerations on his skin that poked through his stained jumpsuit. 

“Do you think your cousin can fix this?” Bella asked solemnly. If he died before they reached this other alien...  

“It’s not likely I’ll survive this,” Thirteen stated, his mouth turned downward.  “I simply need to get you to him.”

“Why?”

Thirteen chuckled slightly but was soon muted by the pain through his abdomen. “It’s what we’ve always done for your kind for centuries, Specimen. You’d be utterly lost in this universe without our guiding hand.”

Bella’s brow furrowed in thought. All of those years staring at the night sky, speculating with Mortimer about the possibility of life on other planets.  Oh, how he would have loved to experience all of this! 

A bright floodlight caught in their vision. Bella shielded her eyes from the blinding white beam. A male voice shouted menacingly. “Hey! You’re trespassing! This compound is on private property!”

“Specimen! You need to run. I’ll provide a distraction.”

“You’ve got to be joking. In your condition?”

“I’ll be fine. But you won’t be,” Thirteen gave her a grim stare. “The beings here are known to be hostile and unfriendly to outsiders. Go!”

Bella hesitated to move. She wanted to stay, talk some sense into Thirteen, that they still both could escape. Besides, she didn’t want to be left all alone.

Another shrill whisper from Thirteen urging her to run off in the darkness. He began to throw his voice and taunt the investigator of the compound.  “Oh, no worries, sir! Nobody here for you to concern yourself with!”

Heart pounding in her ears, legs sprinting, Bella pushed herself to the limits. On her sprint out of there, she encountered a small, slim figure in the darkness. “Hey! Private property, jerk!” A woman’s voice bellowed at her. “Out!”

How was it that everyone spoke Simlish in the universe anyhow? Bella wondered while hiding behind a boulder on the edge of the compound.  As her eyes focused in the darkness, she began to note the silhouettes of the building.  There was a large radio tower in juxtaposition to the two-story compound. The place had tiny windows along the foundation with harsh light that shone from them.  

Bella remained silent and waited for the figure to retreat. She listened as the figure who hunted her – the female voice – called out to the one by Thirteen. “Loki! I don’t see anyone.”

“Did they say ‘Anyone’ or is that your statement, Circe?” the male voice asked, annoyed. “Couldn’t see over here but they literally identified themselves as ‘Nobody.’”

“Either way, let’s forget it for now, Loki. It wasn’t the clone or our Nervous Subject. Let’s go back inside.”

Bella watched as the figure called Loki moved from the darkened edge of the compound and closer to the building illuminated with light.  As the female figure called Circe crossed into the light, Bella could see her full form: short cropped light hair, a lab coat, glasses.  

She was a Sim! Bella’s limbs trembled, her legs wobbly as she had originally presumed she would be face to face with another alien on a strange planet. But Circe looked human. Where in the universe was she?

After the two figures in lab coats retreated into the building, she heard Thirteen’s weary voice call out to her.

“Specimen! Over here.”

Bella tracked Thirteen’s voice and located him in the receding darkness. His hand reached out to hers and clasped it with desperation. “You need to move me off of these grounds.”

“You need to rest. You’re injured.”

“I’m dying, Specimen. But please, not here.” He glanced with worry at the approaching sunrise on this planet. “Those creatures are harsh and do horrible things. I’d rather be buried in the desert with the animals picking my bones than what those monsters would do to my empty vessel of a body.”

Against her better judgment, Bella complied with Thirteen’s wish. She dragged the dying limp body of Thirteen off the compound grounds.  He grew weaker with travel. Bella worried she was harming him further with each groan, but he kept reassuring her he was likely to die on this planet no matter how much she manhandled him.  

“You need to find my cousin, Specimen. He’s settled down here, and has a family. Yes, I know–” he raised a hand to silence her query, “but he’s different that way. Not like the rest of my kind. You must find Nine.”

She held his hand until it grew limp and lifeless in hers. His head lilted to the side, black eyes vacant. Bella patted his hand and felt a pang of sadness for her captor turned protector. “I’ll do my best to find Nine.”

As dawn fully emerged on the desert horizon,  Bella set to work.  She began to dig a hole in the sand with her bare hands to cover Thirteen’s body. And then she worried how she would find another alien in a foreign place. How does one find a green creature named Nine who lives on a desert planet?

Placing the final scoop of sand onto the mound that was Thirteen’s grave, Bella stood up.  She felt eyes upon her.  Slowly she turned and spotted a young man in the distance. She held up her hand to block against the brightness of the sun’s rays. She squinted as her eyes took in the appearance of the young man who suddenly appeared in the desert.

Blond hair, blue eyes, green skin. He tentatively approached her, slow movements as if he feared he’d frighten her away.  Bella was stunned when he spoke to her. “Hey…are you the clone?”

She glanced down as the young green skinned man gently grabbed her hand and pulled her along. “It’s alright. Come with me. I’ll find a place to hide you from the Beakers.”

Chapter Text

“Few sons are like their fathers--most are worse, few better.”

― Homer, The Odyssey

It was an ordinary home. A small yellow single-story ranch situated in a desert.  Bella walked up the path, the heat radiating off the cement walkway from the rising desert sun. Beyond the white picket fence, the grass – a noticeably artificial lawn – lined the sides of the path. 

The fear of being alone in an uncharted world compelled her to follow the young man. Noting his skin color was similar to Thirteen’s celadon hue, she had asked him if he was an alien. He had looked at her curiously and wrinkled his nose, “No, I was born here.” The young man once again offered his help and suggested she come with him to avoid danger. Given she had no idea where she was, Bella decided that compliance was her best option and got into his car.

Inside, the home was small compared to the spaciousness of Goth manor. Simple colors of brown paneling for a cozy family room. Shades of faded olive paint contrasted against white windows. A simple wooden table sat near the kitchen and the back sliding glass door leading to a deck out back. The residual scent of burnt barbecue hot dogs and bathroom bleach subtly warred in the air, attempting to coexist in harmony. Nevertheless, the house spoke of modesty and warmth, a simple house for a loving family. All it was missing was a golden retriever – or a komodo dragon, Bella thought amusedly. 

Everything about this world seemed eerily similar to home and yet not. 

“Ooh, it’s the Lady in Red!” a young girl in blonde pigtails marveled as she stepped into the kitchen area. Her green eyes studied Bella in awe.

“You brought the clone here, Johnny?” chastised the woman of the house. Her green eyes flashed in alarm at the young man as she spoke. “What were you thinking? We’ll have the Beakers on our doorstep now!” 

Bella’s eyes studied the composite of this family. The woman’s complexion was what she would consider fair back in Pleasantview. Green eyes, long blonde hair in a ponytail.  The young girl was clearly the woman’s daughter, a mini replica of her mother in every form. She still couldn’t figure out how the green young man fit into all of this. 

“Mom, she seemed lost and confused.” Johnny shrugged helplessly. “You want me to leave her alone in the desert sun?”

So they were a family! This boy named Johnny was this woman’s son. Bella’s mind filled with more questions, yet she tempered the urge to interject. She listened to learn more about them. 

“I figured you or Dad could help her out like last time,” Johnny offered. “Maybe help her find her way back home.”

“Yes! I want to go home!” Bella chimed in, eyes eager and hopeful this family might know her mystery savior. In the depths of her heart she prayed that Thirteen was even correct about any of this information. “Can you help me find Number Nine?”

The blonde woman studied Bella, eyes scanning her all over. “Something doesn’t seem right about her. I don’t know what, but she seems…different.”

“Maybe because she was burying a dead body in the desert?” Johnny shrugged indifferently. Bella wondered if that was perhaps a common occurrence in their world. Such an idea would be pure scandal back in Pleasantview.

“Yes, that body I buried. He was Thirteen.”

“You buried a thirteen-year-old?” the young girl’s mouth hung open. “That’s creepy.”

“No, that was his name,” Bella corrected. “He was injured when we crashed. He said that Nine lives here, retired to this planet, so he thought Nine could help us.” Bella’s eyes searched the others for any sign of recognition to her words.  “Do you know him?”

“Jenny! Those damn Grunts sabotaged the barbecue again!” a voice hollered, interjecting from outside. “What do they have against a guy wanting to enjoy a little barbecue and keeping a nice lawn in the desert anyway?”

The family’s eyes were all on Bella. They watched her and the door as the voice from outside entered the home.  

Bella’s eyebrows arched in surprise. This man resembled Thirteen in appearance than he did his own family. Her eyes took in the sight of a tall man, similar chartreuse complexion somewhere between Johnny’s and Thirteen’s, dark black eyes, gray hair, and a red Hawaiian shirt. 

He entered the room and studied Bella astutely with his long narrow features. 

“You’re an alien!” Bella whispered. The color drained from her face. Were Thirteen’s kind everywhere in this galaxy?

The tall alien’s black eyes narrowed in offense. “I do prefer the term ‘naturalized intergalactic citizen,’ thankyouverymuch.” 

“Do you know him?”  Bella’s heart pounded in her throat. 

“Who?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously, a frown on his lips.

“Pollination Technician Nine,” Bella answered, every word a silent prayer, a hope that the name would spark a flicker of recognition.

She saw hesitation in the alien’s eyes. His long thin fingers reached out to grasp Bella’s. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. A tingling warmth radiated through his hand to hers. She gasped as she realized she could feel his inquisitiveness through his touch. 

He finally dropped her hand, opening his eyes. “You’re not the clone. Who are you?”

“Bella Goth. I’m from Earth. Or SimNation. Well, Pleasantview, actually.” 

She could hear the soft gasp from the woman as the daughter and son stared in confusion.  

“‘Pleasantview’ Bella Goth? Impossible…” The tall alien muttered, scratching his chin. “But that was so—” 

“Does that mean something to you?” she asked them. The alien moved away from her. 

Bella watched as he walked away to whisper something to the blonde woman. She wondered what their relationship was. Clearly they had an intimate bond based on how their hands touched each other in reassurance. The way their upper bodies leaned together naturally. Just like how she’d talk to Mortimer. Bella realized they must be a couple.

The alien moved back toward Bella with an outstretched hand. “Okay, we’ll help you.”  

Bella grabbed the alien’s hand and shook it. “Thank you! So, can you take me to Nine?”

The alien chuckled. “You’re looking at him, Pleasantview Bella Goth!”

Her eyebrow raised in apprehension mid-handshake.

“Pollination Technician Number Nine Smith, at your service. But nowadays I prefer the names P.T., Petey, or Paul, if you don’t mind.”

~~~~

She watched the Smith family discuss what to do about her while she sat with them in the same room.  While it was a step up from being called “Specimen” as she obediently followed Thirteen through the desert, the Smith family still didn’t quite factor Bella’s thoughts or opinions into their own plans.

“What about taking her to Ophelia’s aunt?” Jenny suggested.

“Mom, we need something like a wormhole – not a necromancer!” Johnny admonished. “Do you think it’s worth asking Ripp if we can swipe his dad’s government clearance card?”

“For what, exactly?” P.T. asked skeptically.  “We don’t know if the government even has that capability to send her back.”

“Would you rather sneak back onto the lunatic compound of The Beakers?” Johnny leaned back, arms folded and the heels of his shoes resting on the table’s edge. “You know they probably have the technology if it was in that spacecraft, Dad.”

“Hey! Feet off!” Jenny swatted at her teenage son’s feet. Bella smiled despite herself as his green complexion now sported a red hue from his mother’s chastisement.

“No good,” P.T. shook his head. “If we mistook her for the clone, how do you think they’ll respond? Especially since the real clone helped their Test Subject escape the compound last time?”

Bella recalled the Beakers saying something about a “nervous” subject, but didn’t think they meant a test subject. “What sort of experiments do those people do there?”

The family’s heads all swiveled in surprise to Bella’s direction. Each set of eyes staring at her, wondering if they dare answer her question.

“No one fully knows, but they don’t seem to be ethical,” Jenny finally answered as she drummed her fingernails in thought on the table. “Paul, do you think my brothers might have—”

“No,” P.T. firmly interjected.  “We can’t involve them.”

“Is there anyone else we can involve?” Jenny asked.

Both father and son bowed their heads in contemplation. Johnny rubbed the back of his head while PT9 bowed his head in deep thought. 

“Well, she could just make a life here, perhaps,” P.T. floated the idea as he rubbed his chin with his long fingers.

Bella was stunned. They seemed so complacent about the situation. “So that’s it? A stranger drops into your town, and your solution is…I just live here now?”

“And why not? That’s exactly what I did.” P.T. stood up, unfolding his long, angular body to address her. “Strangetown isn’t such a bad place to be stranded in, Pleasantview Bella Goth.”

She slumped down into the wooden chair. Her heavy exhale pushed forth all of the baggage from every decision leading her into this very spot. Running away from the compound, trying to escape the spaceship, kissing Don on his rooftop. 

Bella let out another shaky breath that shuddered into a small cry. Tears threatened to spill over from her eyelids. “I just want to go home.”

Jenny got up and put a comforting arm around Bella. She patted her shoulder and motioned for Johnny to grab some tissues. “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you need.”

Sensing the weight of emotions, Johnny sheepishly made an exit from the kitchen. Jenny motioned with her free arm for her alien husband to say some words of encouragement.

“Oh, yes! You’ll learn to like it here, Pleasantview Bell–”

“Just call me Bella. Please.” 

The tall alien nodded in acknowledgement. “Okay, Bella. As I was saying, Strangetown has some nice things. Sure, there’s a bit of an alien population, some obsessive military general, an old lady with a graveyard in her front yard and some freaky scientists….” He trailed off, noting how his words offered no solace to her sullen demeanor, “but we’re just as normal as any other town!”

“P.T., you love your children, yes? “Bella turned to him. “Jill and Johnny?”

“Why, yes, of course I do. And my other children. After all, I was a pollination technician before I married Jenny.” His black eyes blinked and a smirk formed on his lips. “And I was quite good at my job, I’m proud to say. In fact, in your Pleasantview, back in the day, there was this one gentleman who produced two offspring from a pregnancy that—”

“Petey, honey, I don’t think Bella needs to hear all of that right now.” Jenny flashed her husband a warning look as she patted Bella’s shoulder again. “We need to come up with a plan for her to adjust to life here.”

P.T. stood, hands on his hips. “I was getting to that, Jenny,” he leaned toward Bella and spoke directly to her.  “Don’t mind her. She gets a little uncomfortable when I speak about my old life before we were married.”

Bella couldn’t resist a small smile and a laugh. Jenny and P.T.9 were an unusual pairing – much like what people said about her own marriage.  

“Only because of the amount of men you forced to bear their offspring,” Jenny rolled her eyes.
“Including some of my family members!” Jenny folded her arms and gave her husband a reprimanding stare.

“Yes, but that was the past.” P.T. stretched out his hand to take his wife’s. “Now I only impregnate you, dearest!” 

“Pollination Technician Nine! You can’t–!” Jenny lowered her voice to speak in a hushed tone to her husband. “You can’t say that sort of thing in front of company.”

P.T. blinked and studied Bella intently. “Do you care that I said that?”

Bella simply stared in defeat at the table, too lost in her own thoughts as memories of Mortimer started to flood back: how he’d dip her for a kiss, the way his hands moved about him while excitedly sharing his scientific breakthroughs, the frown under his mustache when he disagreed with her. His apprehension when she told him she was going to Don Lothario’s to help him set up that damn telescope. 

Her heart ached too much to care what strange dirty laundry this alien-human family had to air. 

She startled at the soft touch of P.T.’s fingers on her forearm. Then a warm tingling  – much like last time when he used this technique to discover she wasn’t the clone - flowed under her skin and to her heart. Bella swore she could feel the bitter pang of her own heartbreak mirrored back through him. The tears began to flow silently from her eyes. 

“You have a family,” P.T. stated reverent and a little sad, as if he did feel Bella’s sorrow emanating off of her. “And they’re your world, aren’t they?” 

Bella sniffed and nodded. “Yes, not all that different from your family, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I have a husband, a daughter.” Her eyes flitted over to the empty chair where Johnny sat earlier.  “And a son.”

P.T. sighed, eyes downcast. He blinked and nodded. “Okay then. That settles it.” He stood up and briefly disappeared to the living room.  He returned with car keys in his hand. “Come along then, Bella. We’re going to pay a visit to the military base.”

“I thought you said it was too risky–”

Holding his car keys in hand, PT declared, “Nothing is too risky for the love of one’s family.”

~~~~

P.T. insisted that Johnny join him on this mission. He also added his son as a means to “bring that middle Grunt” along for their journey to the military base. Bella slumped exhausted in the back seat of the car, relieved that they devised a plan to bring her home. 

Since P.T. thought up the plan to break into the base and bring along the boy named Grunt, he told Johnny he should contribute to the plan by driving them toward the base. Bella was ordered to slide over behind Johnny to make room for their final passenger.  

They picked him up alongside the road. A teenage boy, long haired and sullen, he got into the backseat with Bella, introduced himself as Ripp. According to the Smiths, he was their entry key into the base and was needed for the mission.

Bella looked out the window from the backseat of the car and noticed the sleek aircraft in the sky.  “Are those search planes?” she asked nervously.

“No, drones,” Ripp replied dryly as he eyed the flying objects.  “Pops says they’re to keep out unwanted sky surveillance on this latest ‘Top Secret’ project.” He snorted. “Not so secret when he’s leaving the blueprints out.”

“And thank goodness for your dad’s typical stupidity and carelessness, Ripp!” P.T. commented cheerily. “Or else we wouldn’t know about this latest Dance-O-Sphere being built right in Strangetown.”

Bella stopped her window gazing. The tug of a familiar phrase from home pulled her from the reverie with the drones.  “A Dance-O-Sphere? Are you freakin’ kidding me right now?”

“It’s not exactly a ‘Dance O Sphere,’ Pleasantview Bella,” Johnny explained. His blue eyes occasionally flicked to the rearview mirror to look at her. “It’s some kind of wormhole technology.”

“Wormhole?”

P.T. placed his hand on the back of the driver’s head rest and turned his body to speak to Bella. “Yes, you see, our kind used that to come to the various planets in the universe to spread our seed throughout the galaxy.” 

“Ugh, Dad, do you really have to say it like that? Can’t you just say ‘repopulate your people’ or something?” Through the rearview mirror, Bella could see his eyes roll at his father’s coarse terminology.

Bella was already growing used to the green alien’s crassness when she made the mistake of asking how he and his wife met. P.T. had described it as accidentally abducting the wrong Sim but meeting the right one since he got to put his DNA into her anyway.  P.T. got a talking to by both his wife and his teenage son for that turn of phrase. 

“Whatever. You know what I mean,” P.T. waved his hand dismissively and repositioned himself back to facing front.  “Either way, we sneak into the base, we warm up the device, set the coordinates back to her realm, and off she’s zapped home.”

Bella twirled a strand of her dark locks pensively – a habit she hadn’t done since she was a teenager.  “Will this even work? What if we’re caught?”

“We’ll worry about that when we get there.” P.T. offered in his flat reassurance. Then he pointed a thumb to the backseat occupant next to Bella. “Besides, why do you think we brought the General’s son along with us for the security breach?”

As they reached the first set of checkpoints, Bella was instructed to hide under a blanket on the floor of the car. Her heart thudded in her chest as they approached the beige building. Every nerve in her body was activated and ready – for what, she didn’t know. There were no windows to the building. They drove through multiple checkpoints lined with armed guards. At each stop, Johnny pointed to Ripp, stating they were taking him to see his father. 

Once waved through the last checkpoint, P.T. ushered Bella to a back door, blocking her from view with his body, where they waited. Johnny and Ripp snuck inside the building to grant them access from the inside. They propped open the door and Bella followed behind the two teenagers and green alien dad. She followed as they steered her toward a top secret Dance-o-Sphere programmed to take her home.

They moved through corridors, slipping carefully into alcoves and dodging high-ranking personnel at each turn of the corner.

“Do you even know where we’re supposed to be going?” she whispered to P.T. in one of their hiding spots.

“Not really, but how hard can it be to find a stargate?” P.T. stated jovially as he sneered at a soldier behind his back.

“I thought you said it was a ‘Dance-O-Sphere’?”

He waved his long green fingers dismissively and scowled. “Same thing. It works no matter what you call it.”

A man in round-frame glasses and a navy suit walked past them. The man stopped mid-step. He did a double take, looking back on their hiding spot.  Did the man see them? No. He couldn’t. Yet he looked as if he saw something; haunted by what he thought he saw.  

Bella studied his face in profile. The way his dark hair combed and parted neatly to the side struck her as misplaced but familiar; she had the strange notion that she knew him. She shook her head in disbelief.  In this strange desert world, there would be no way to know these Sims like she would back home.

She followed behind P.T. as they regrouped with Johnny and Ripp. He pointed to the spherical object. Bella huffed in disbelief: it did resemble the Dance O Sphere she’d seen in nightclubs back in Pleasantview. Bella never would have guessed those fun electronic dance mechanisms were a porthole to another dimension. And how recklessly Sims used it as such!

P.T. and Bella crept surreptitiously onto the floor, ducking into hiding spots from keen eyes as needed. Johnny and Ripp readied to be a decoy if things escalated into more harrowing efforts. “Hey, wouldn’t be the first time my old man has to chase me for a beat down,” Ripp quipped with a shrug.  

Activating the panel near the mechanism, P.T. instructed Bella to be ready on his cue. As the machine hummed, the interior flood lights came on. 

“Halt! Step away immediately from the machine!” a voice bellowed through the P.A. system.  Strobe lights began flashing on the floor. Heavy metal doors secured the exits into a lockdown.

The machine whirled to life, each ring rotating and twisting in orbit. White light began to glow from its center. “Now’s your chance, Bella!” P.T. yelled over the cacophony of sounds from the Dance-O-Sphere.

She sprinted to the device, readying to leap inside. As Bella was about to make her exit, her eyes caught sight of the man in glasses from before. She turned and paused to look at him once more.  His face looked ashen, as if he saw a ghost, and his mouth began to form the words. 

Bella stepped into the gate, and she heard the man call out to her.

“Mom??”

The white lights enveloped her. Too late, she realized, while hurtling through time and space. Now she knew why the man carefully watching her from the military base seemed so familiar.

She whispered her son’s name, “Alexander.”

Chapter Text

“Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier;

I have seen worse sights than this.”

― Homer, The Odyssey

Shuttled out of the sky, Bella rolled and landed in a ditch near an abandoned granary. Doing her best to brush off the bits of turf and debris that clung to her red dress, she plucked a singular blade of green grass from the mess. She smiled.  

No sand. No desert. And no crashed UFOs or aliens to contend with this time.  

Looking at the clear blue sky, Bella sighed. “I think I’m almost home.” 

Her eyes drifted to a sign reading “McDermott Farms.” With any luck, they could possibly point her toward Pleasantview. 

There was a strange air about the McDermott family. When she knocked on their door, they weren’t alarmed in the slightest; it was like they knew how she arrived here. They studied her head to toe, examined her stained red dress, her mussed hair, her chipped nails – and seemed nonplussed by her appearance. Nevertheless, they offered Bella shelter and made a phone call, stating they knew someone who could assist in her situation. “This man once came here asking about Pleasantview, too,” Mr. McDermott said.

Bella sat at their simple kitchen table. She observed the room. It was like a living time capsule. Knick-knacks in the corner reminiscent of typical kitschy decor from the sixties. Country floral wall paper and the aroma of a fresh pot of coffee finished the scene. The scent kickstarted nearly forgotten childhood memories of her and her brother at the table with their parents on Sunday morning.

A knock on the front door broke Bella from her reverie. Mrs. McDermott opened it to greet their guest – the one who claimed to know a thing or two about Pleasantview. Bella’s head turned in the direction of the entryway to get a glimpse of this person sent to help.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Fingers gripped the table. The sight of the man standing in the threshold of the kitchen completely unnerved her as his face came into view. 

With a subtle smile, Don Lothario stepped into the room.

~~~~

They went for a walk outside on the McDermotts’ property. Bella had time to study Don in their long breaks of conversation.  He seemed different, older or mature in the subtlest of ways: a slight change to the marks near his eyes, the muscular frame of his body seemed fuller – more padded in some areas, stray strands of gray hair at his temples which broke the wave of endless black hair. And his signature goatee had grown into a full beard.

That night on his rooftop he carried that level of arrogance one has in their youth; seeing him humbled now, perhaps she had simply misremembered exactly how he looked.

“It’s been a long time since seeing you,” Don commented absently. He gazed forward to the horizon of the McDermott land, a pink sky starting to form on the horizon.

She tilted her head and smiled wryly. “A few days isn’t that long, Don.”

His eyes roamed now to study her. There was a sadness, something wistful in his eyes that Bella couldn’t quite understand its origin. There was a hint of a smile on his lips as he spoke. “You look exactly as I remembered. You know that day you went missing from my rooftop?”

Bella wrung her hands, unsure of his words. “You speak as if that’s been years instead of days, Don.” She looked around at the beauty of this place. The birds sang from the distant trees that lined the property. The air was crisp, almost clean as she took in a breath.

Don laughed to himself and shook his head. “Right. I forgot that. Coming here does that to you.”

“Can you get me back to Pleasantview? The McDermotts seemed to think you could help me.” Bella looked him squarely in the eyes, hoping that the desperation in her voice didn’t deter him.

Don looked away. He rubbed a hand against his beard, and shifted uneasily.  “Yeah, about that….”

“Well, can’t you?” Her brown eyes met his green ones, pleading and hopeful that if anything of their connection in Pleasantview had been genuine, then Don would follow through and help her. 

Don looked away and folded his arms, his eyes back on the horizon. “I’ve been in Riverview a long time, Bella. So long that I’ve built a life here.”

“What? That’s impossible! We only saw each other—”

“Ten years…? Ten years isn’t a long time to you?”

His statement – so level, so matter-of fact in its delivery — sent an eerie chill down her spine. “What?” she barely breathed the reply.

“That’s how long it’s been.” He unfolded his arms and stared at her now. “How long I’ve been living in Riverview, at least.”

Bella’s mind reeled. She experienced simply a matter of a few days since she was abducted by Thirteen and landed in Strangetown, yet Don’s statement spoke otherwise.  She looked at him again. All of those details that seemed different began to line up.  Time had passed, somehow, without her even knowing. “How?’ 

“You…don’t know what happened after you left, do you?” Don began uneasily, his jaw tightening slightly as he mulled over how much to say.

Bella shrugged helplessly as she still processed the news of ten years. “Why would I? I got sucked via a tractor beam into a spaceship.”

Don nodded in concession.  He stepped closer to her. “You also probably don’t know when we are, either, right?”

“I’m guessing ten years into the future?” 

“More like forty years into the past.”  

Bella’s face fell. The hopes of returning home dying within her eyes for Don to see. 

Don placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Pleasantview doesn’t even exist yet. Neither do your kids. Nina…Dina. Hell, technically I’m not supposed to exist here.”

That crisp air from the sunset now seemed heavy to Bella. No longer cleansing, it was like losing the beacon of light guiding her home.  She was lost now. “You can’t help me then.”

“Not likely beyond taking you home with me, but even then…I….well…” Don stepped back, pacing slightly as he wrestled with the words. She eyed him curiously.  

“I’m married now, Bella. She’s…” Don stopped and turned to face her. The weight and worry of everything catching up to him. “Celeste’s a wonderful woman, and she means everything to me here. Bringing you home would look…well…not right.”

Bella flashed a skeptical grin. “The Casanova of Pleasantview got hitched?”

Don rubbed the back of his neck and averted his eyes.  “Yeah, about that. Back in Pleasantview...after you left….There was a time where— Cassandra and I somehow…got engaged. But we didn’t marry!”

Bella crossed her arms and frowned her disapproval. “No one ‘somehow’ gets engaged.”

“She just— Cassandra.  She came to my place looking for answers about you. And…I don’t know. It just happened and— I thought you should know that.” He sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his faded work jeans. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For yourself?”

“No, sorry for your family. The only thing I’m sorry for myself about is listening to Dina Caliente.  She’s the reason I’m stuck here.” With the way he said her name, Bella didn’t miss the disdain in his voice. 

She thought about this latest piece to what she’d miss. So much time elapsed while she was gone. Bella shook her head. “Don, it’s like the more you speak, the less you make sense.”

“I know, I get it. Listen, after…after you disappeared, Mortimer tried desperately to find you.  He was working on a time machine, thinking you went to another dimension.”

Another dimension.  Hearing the words was like sliding the missing puzzle piece into the frame. She was finally beginning to grasp how much she was lost to her family – and for how long they struggled without her presence at home.

“He was losing it.” Don continued, taking a breath to steady his voice as he delivered Bella the harsh truth of what transpired in her absence.  “He also knew…somehow, he knew…that Cass and I wouldn’t marry.  Anyway, after he passed—”

The words dropped heavily on her. Like a stone dropped into a lake with a singular hole, rippling the surface. Bella felt her own reality shift at the awful realization. She barely formed the words to say them. 

“Mortimer’s dead?”

Don’s mouth closed, his lips set firm as he once again said too much.  Don wasn’t known for subtleties. “Dina thought– she thought it was my fault, that I upset him too much. I just couldn’t go through with her plan.”

Bella tried to bury her grief and push through. She sucked in the air, trying to steady her rudderless mind. Her heart ached at the thought of coming back home only to not see Mortimer again. She took a deep breath and grabbed Don’s hand. “Tell me more. I need to know.”

Don fidgeted with his hands. “Well, not much more to say. After Mortimer’s…you know. Cassandra and Dina had some major grudges against me. Cassandra managed to activate what he had created of the time machine. Dina gave me the shove and….”

He held up his hands apologetically. The story was over. And she was no closer to finding a viable way back home.

“Well, here I am now.  The rest is history, I guess.”

Bella and Don sat in silence in the twilight.  They glanced back at the McDermott house, noting how far they had walked in their conversation outside.  

“I don’t think I can help you, not much beyond setting you up here to live,” Don offered sympathetically, “or if you’d like to check out Sunset Valley. That place is sort of nice.”

“Sunset Valley?” Bella perked up at the sound of her hometown. Could she possibly dare?  “I wonder if it’s safe for me to go.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

Bella looked at him and for the first time all evening, she smiled. “I grew up there.”

Don’s face blanched. “That…that was you, then.”

“Me?”

“Yes! When I first got here— Oh wow. It had to be.” Don’s hand ran through his hair. He shook his head and swallowed. “How long have you known Mortimer?”

Bella shrugged, shaking her head curiously. “Since we were kids. We didn’t date until we were much older. Why?”

“When I first came here, I saw you. Both of you.” Don’s eyes fixed on Bella, remembering as he spoke in a hushed tone. “And Mortimer was young, but — he knew who I was.”

None of it made any sense, but something in her clung firmly to that hope. Her heart thrummed eagerly with her racing mind.  Don said he saw her, yet she had no memory of it happening, ever. The whole scenario was uncanny; but if Mortimer knew him, it meant something else.  Perhaps Mortimer knew more than she did.

“Don, you need to take me to Sunset Valley. I need to find Mortimer.”

Chapter Text

“Of the many things hidden from the knowledge of man,

 nothing is more unintelligible than the human heart.”

― Homer, The Odyssey

She wondered how this would work. While Bella didn’t have the same working knowledge of physics and time travel as her husband did, she wasn’t sure if a younger version of Mortimer would either.

At the same time, what choice did she have now? Wander in this decade seeking a new life in another town like Don did? Remain stuck here in her childhood hometown? And what would happen once she ran into her former self? Bella recalled something of time paradoxes thanks to Mortimer’s frequent excited ramblings of his academia.

And despite living it herself and Mortimer’s intellectual curiosity, Bella questioned — even if she found young Mortimer — if he’d believe her outright. She needed a strategy to safely approach him without disrupting their future together. 

With some assistance from Don to purchase clothes more in style to blend in, Bella began to observe the young Mortimer Goth of this timeline. It had been easy to identify him. Those pensive eyes, that dark hair parted, and the beginnings of his signature mustache mere fuzz adorning his upper lip. She absently recalled their first kiss, when they were teenagers, and how that had tickled her.  

Watching from a distance, she trailed Mortimer to the places he frequented: school, home, the park, the library. Strangely, Bella expected to see her younger self in tow with him, yet she was conspicuously absent. Did her presence here cause her former self not to exist?

Bella needed a meeting. She pleaded for Don to assist in orchestrating the encounter at the library.  Don begrudgingly agreed under the conditions Bella didn’t expose him for the past life he had back in Pleasantview. “And you can’t say anything about us having a thing,” Don warned as he held the door open to enter the library.

“Don, we didn’t have a thing,” Bella rolled her eyes and adjusted her sunglasses on the bridge of her nose. 

“Perfect. Now remember that because I don’t want Celeste to ask too many questions about–”

“About what, dearest?” Celeste chimed in, leaning on the checkout desk watching her husband walk in. Her eyes scanned the woman accompanying him: trenchcoat closed, hair tied back and under a kerchief, sunglasses still perched on her nose while indoors.  She was clearly hiding something.  “Who’s your friend?”

Don already panicked. “Friend? She’s not my friend! She’s just—”

“Penelope Peabody,” Bella offered her hand with her introduction and lowered her sunglasses. “I’m new to town and Don was showing me around. Particularly the library.”

Her words suddenly motivated Don to relax from his deer-in-headlights response of panic. “Yeah! Of course! Actually, Penny and I go way back. Old friends in my old town.”

Bella stared at him out of the corner of her eye. So much for discretion. “Yes, we did some research,” she decided to riff on his explanation and try to steer it into plausibility for when she encountered Mortimer, “at one point together. Briefly.”

Celeste smiled. “Aww, Don! See? I knew you had it in you.” She grinned and turned to Bella. “I always say he’s so well-versed in his field of expertise as a doctor. Did you know he’s our general practitioner in Riverview?”

Bella turned, a brow arched in surprise and approval. “No, he didn’t mention it.”

“Anyone who needs help goes right to Dr. Don Caselnova,” Celeste beamed with pride. “He’s quite the genius but refuses to get into research. Imagine the breakthroughs my husband could make in the field of medicine!”

Don waved off his wife’s compliments before Bella could question the surname change. “You know I prefer working with our residents anyway.” He gripped Celeste’s hand and flashed his charming Don Lothario smile at her.

Bella was growing bored watching the couple flirt and make doe eyes at each other all afternoon. While it was comforting to see Don so enamored with her, she came here for a purpose — and he was just walking in.  “I need your help, Celeste, with finding a book.”

Celeste let go of Don’s hand and straightened. “Oh? What kind of book?”

Bella spotted Mortimer: thin frame, dark hair, fuzzy mustache. Better than she remembered, and certainly better up close than at the distance from which she watched him the past few days.  “Quantum physics,” Bella spoke loudly enough for him to possibly hear thus piquing his interest.

“Shh!” Celeste admonished. “Did you forget when you were, Penelope?”

“Excuse me, but did you say ‘quantum physics’?”

It had worked! Bella turned and smiled politely to Mortimer, her eyes scanning his youthful face.  Even as the eccentric scholarly teen, she had almost forgotten how endearingly handsome he was. “Yes, I did mention it. I’m a researcher. I’m looking to do some field tests on the material in time.”

A small pull on the side of his mouth, a little half smirk forming as he procured the book from his satchel. He held it out to Bella. “I was about to renew it, but…”

Her hands gripped the book, gently holding it with him. Mortimer seemed reluctant to part with it. “Maybe you can help me out with my research,” Bella suggested. “I could use an assistant.”

“Are you a scientist?” 

She flashed a teasing grin. “Are you?”

His eyes roamed her face, studying her. A small satisfied grin formed on his lips. “I don’t think we’re formally introduced, are we?” He let go of the book to offer his hand. “Mortimer Goth. Student of science.”

Bella placed the book on the checkout desk near Celeste. She placed her hand in Mortimer’s, gripping it to shake slightly. She tried to ignore the mixture of comfort and disappointment at touching him again –  at least in some variation of him. “Penny Peabody. Field agent for quantum physics.”

~~~~

Mortimer readily believed Bella’s story. She was briefly in town, a drifter from place to place, who enjoyed meeting new people and learning about the behaviors of the space-time continuum. After all, her story wasn’t entirely fabricated! 

As for Mortimer, he was eager to speak to Penny Peabody as she listened to his knowledge. She nudged his ideas with the slightest questions: 

“If someone were to time travel, how would they get back when the technology didn’t exist?” 

“What do you know about creating a wormhole?”

“What time paradoxes are legitimate worries and which ones are probably bogus?”

He always answered with his ideas or searched out books in the library to support his hypothesis. She nearly slipped up once with him. After a lengthy discussion on general relativity and the prospect of an actual time traveller existing in the vicinity, Bella had overly praised him.  “Mortimer, you are simply so brilliant. I don’t know how I’m so lucky to have your company and not some pretty young girl at your side instead.”  

Her comment seemed to have struck a nerve. He had backed away from her, face solemn and contemplative as he sighed heavily, dropping his head into his hands. “Permission to speak freely about teenage angst, Penny?”

Bella nodded, eager to hear Mortimer open up his heart’s woes to her.

He straightened up, hands placed on either side of the table. He stopped and started multiple times, then drummed his fingers on the surface. “There is a girl. And, yes, she’s wonderful, but…”

Bella found herself hanging on his every word.  In her mind, she raced through their history to compare notes.  When did she and Mortimer get together? They were friends for so long, it always seemed like they simply slid easily into the romantic aspect of their relationship; no magical defining moment.  Thus she curiously wondered how he was full of angst over their relationship.

She leaned forward, a small smile as she attempted to coax him. “...But?”

Mortimer’s shoulders fell. “But I don’t.”

“Oh.” She was taken aback. In all of her personal history with Mortimer, this was news to Bella. Was it all a lie? Did he not truly love her the way she loved him? Or was it possibly someone else whom Mortimer never told her about?

Mortimer shook his head. “I don’t like her. She’s a Landgraab.” So it was someone else! She knew Mortimer’s parents never particularly cared for Bella as his spouse. Enough snide comments about her family’s lack of social status and good breeding came out during her adult life whenever they came to their home to visit. But Mortimer never told her they had someone else in mind for him. “Old money, like us. And she’s cold, unfeeling.”

He grimaced the more he spoke about the other girl. “Not nice.”  

Bella’s heart hammered, jealous for her younger self to have such obstacles to overcome to be with Mortimer Goth. “So it’s an arranged marriage.”

“Somewhat.” Mortimer gave a shrug. “And the problem? I’m in love with someone else.”

A surge of hope filled her chest. She kept her voice calm and level as she gently prodded him to keep sharing. “Oh?”

Mortimer shook his head and removed his hand from the table. “And there’s so many problems with that.” 

“Not of the same status?” She asked casually, attempting to mask the concern.

“What? No! I don’t care about that! No. She’s my best friend. So...” He got up to walk around, pacing restlessly, hands in his pockets as he sighed.

Ah, so there she was in this narrative! Mortimer never told her about the fight he had to put up for her – defying his parents’ wishes – simply for them to be together.  Bella smiled in spite of herself. 

Mortimer stared out the window. “I can’t even tell her. And even if I tell her, what then? What if she doesn’t feel the same?”

She desperately wanted to tell him the truth. About everything. Bella stepped forward in an effort to console him and held back, suddenly remembering herself. She couldn’t truly comfort him with the truth. Right now, in this room, she wasn’t Bella Goth; she was Penny Peabody, alleged field researcher to quantum mechanics. Some woman who shared an interest with an up and coming teenage scholar of physical science.  

“It doesn’t matter right now anyway,” Mortimer looked back at Bella, a wry smile to his lips. “She’s away. For the summer.” 

And then Bella remembered why she hadn’t run into her younger self here. She remembered when she came back from her family vacation. The entire time she had been thinking of nothing but Mortimer and her developing feelings for him. Just as she was about to profess her love to him, he had kissed her. That tickle of his mustache as he awkwardly tilted his head. Then with renewed confidence, he had grabbed her and kissed her a second time. Bella smiled fondly at the memory of their first kiss. “Tell you what: when this girl comes back, tell her how you feel. You may be surprised at her reaction.”

Mortimer nodded, albeit Bella knew he was skeptical of her advice based on the dismissive shrug of his shoulders.  “Anyway, you said there was a supposed time traveller? Right here in Sunset Valley?”

“Riverview, actually.”

Mortimer rubbed his chin as he contemplated how to find the time traveller’s location. “Do you have a car, Penny?”

~~~~

They arrived at the location: 100 Bounty Drive. It was the same location when she first arrived from Strangetown. Mortimer’s theory supposed that a mechanism needed to be left behind for the time travel to be effective. And thus Mortimer and Bella were looking for something remaining from either her journey or Don’s from ten years prior.

“An abandoned granary?” Mortimer wondered aloud. “That would explain why no one questioned the alien technology here.”

“Alien?” Bella eyed him curiously. Interesting choice of words after what she’d been through. 

“Figure of speech. Simply put: not from this timeline. That’s for sure.”

They stepped out of the car and went inside the granary. They searched the various floors, different empty rooms. All of it yielded a fragmented story of possible transients wandering in and out of this world. A bed in one corner. Toys in the attic. So far the search seemed fruitless; nothing out of the ordinary. And certainly no foreign technology lying about.

They left the granary disappointed, especially Bella. Mortimer placed a hand on her forearm in a feeble attempt at consolation. “It was a shot in the dark anyway,” he half smiled then withdrew his hand, realizing he was touching her.  

“I’m stuck here now,” Bella muttered morosely. The weight of everything rested on her now. The abduction by the spacecraft, the crash in Strangetown, the time travel journey here. She blinked, feeling the tears begin to well up. 

And no chance of returning back home.

Mortimer frowned and shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, Sunset Valley isn’t that bad of a place to be held over in, right? We’ll find the time traveller, Penny. We just need patience.”

“No, Mortimer, you don’t understand—”  she clasped her hand to her mouth. A stray tear fell down her cheek.

His eyes scanned about her. “What are you hiding, Penny?”

“I wasn’t looking for the time traveller, Mortimer. I’m sorry. I—” 

Their eyes met. In that briefest of instances Bella knew that Mortimer understood. His eyes lit up in excitement.

“Oh, my word! It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the time traveller…” He stared at her in wonder. 

Bella couldn’t help but let out a weak laugh. “Trust me, it’s not as glamorous as it seems.”

He looked at her again, soft eyes carefully studying her face once more. “And you’re homesick, aren’t you?”

Bella smiled, briefly comforted by him again. “See? You get it. Not only smart but incredibly caring. That’s why you’ll be fine with Bella. She’d have to be crazy not to like a guy like you.”

Mortimer straightened, his eyes wide as he slunk away from her. “I…I never told you her name.”

Her pulse began to race at her own betrayal. She began to panic. Oh no. Her eyes pleaded to him as she saw the trust she had built in him be so quickly eroded in one little slip up.

“Who are you?” he asked warily, stepping away as he studied her intently.

“I can’t tell you, Mortimer. I’m sorry.” Clutching herself tightly, she stood up and walked outside.

She needed the space. She needed the time alone now.  Surveying the beauty of the setting sun on the horizon, Bella attempted to convince herself it wouldn’t be so bad living permanently in the past. If Don could do it, why couldn’t she? But then she remembered that she did live here. As a teenager. And she couldn’t risk staying. She’d have to find somewhere else and hope it would be home enough.

She walked further on the property and looked up back at the granary.

And that’s when she saw it. Something uncanny. Something a part of the granary yet not.  Hiding in plain sight was a metallic box, large enough to pass through.  

It was the time machine. And it had a switch. All Bella would need to do was flick the switch and she’d be back home.

“Penny!” Mortimer called as he raced outside.  “Do you think this book means anything— oh wow.”

Bella glanced over at Mortimer who stood surveying the sight of the time machine. 

“Is that it?”

“Yes.” She glanced down at his hands. “What did you find?”

Mortimer stood in awe, eyes scanning every detail of the time machine. He tilted the book for her to view the title and author.  It said something about Pleasantview and she caught the name of the author: Alexander Goth.

“Alex.” She breathed quietly. 

“I think I know who you are. You’re—”

“Don’t.” She pressed a hand, covering his mouth. “Just….help me get back home. To you.”

Mortimer nodded and examined the machine. “If all goes right, this should do it. Just walk through and you’ll be home.”

Bella smiled, hopeful. She kept wondering if it would be too much for them. She had wanted to give Mortimer a hug. “I want to thank you for your help.”

His cheeks colored pink. “The least I could do.”

Placing her arms around him, Bella gave young Mortimer a squeezing hug. It felt both familiar and foreign, like the wrong words to a favorite song. Then the realization hit her: according to Don, Mortimer would be dead in her timeline. “Hopefully I’ll see you soon,” she said, her voice slightly quavering.

He flicked the switch and they watched as the machine activated. Bella took a careful step forward into the blinding white light.

Chapter Text

“Why cover the same ground again? ... It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly.”

― Homer, The Odyssey

It felt like home. The blue sky was above her. The slight breeze carried the aroma of juniper and evergreen. The bluebirds singing in the trees were familiar. 

And yet it all felt wrong. An extra static in the air. A strange distortion of an object, briefly pixelated, then smoothed out and uniform. 

She walked through her own garden and spotted a white wedding arch with chairs. Familiar faces of her friends and neighbors were in attendance.  And under the wedding arch, nervously clutching her bouquet, was her daughter.

Bella beamed as she ran calling her daughter’s name. Her movements were fluid yet she was breathless from the sprint. “Oh, I’m so happy to see you, Cassandra. And on your wedding day! Why, you look—”

Cassandra looked through her mother – as if she wasn’t there. Her daughter’s eyes kept darting around the yard in search of someone, but never once looking at Bella.

“Cassandra! Didn’t you miss me?” Bella asked her, eyes hopeful as she waited for their eyes to finally meet. “Good gracious, I’ve been gone so long that you’re getting married!”

“Dad!” Cassandra called out and waved down her father. 

Bella turned and saw him. Her heart surged in hope. There stood her husband. A little older than she recalled, yet just as handsome in a tuxedo. “Mortimer!” she breathed his name and ran toward him.

Arms outstretched, Bella was bewildered when not only did Mortimer not seem to recognize his wife running to him, but he walked right through her.  She only felt the slight push of air from Mortimer’s movements. Bella gasped as her arms remained empty. 

“Yes, sweetheart, what’s the matter?” Mortimer called over to Cassandra.

Bella’s mind reeled as her heart raced in panic. What was happening? Mortimer didn’t react in the slightest to her presence at all either. It was becoming obvious: when she came back here, something went wrong. 

“Have you seen Don?” Cassandra asked her father, her fingers twisting in worry around her bouquet as she paced.

Bella’s mind moved in all directions.  How was she both here and not here?

“No, darling, I haven’t. But it’s his wedding, too.” Mortimer placed a reassuring hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

The wedding! Bella recalled Don’s explanation to her back in Riverview. He arrived there. After the wedding he didn’t follow through on. 

“Can’t you go look for him, Dad? Talk some sense into him?”

Oh, no! A surge of electricity pulsed through the air. The wedding guests reacted with a surprised murmur to the strange charge they all felt tingle their skin.

She watched as Mortimer paused mid-sentence, and his head turned, scanning the garden in search of something.

Or someone. 

Bella remembered his statement of why he came here. Dina had blamed him. 

After Mortimer died.  

Was it today? she wondered. Her breathing crackled with the air. She saw a pink hue fill the sky, the trees. Bella had to stop this day from continuing.

Distorted music played from the ether.

If possible, Bella had to save Mortimer from today. 

~~~~

Perhaps she had more control than she realized. The blue reverted into the sky. The world that broke apart in pixelated pieces reconfigured again.

The wedding arch remained white and intact with the roses fluttering to the ground.  Bella scanned the area for signs of her family.  She let out a sigh of relief at the sight of Mortimer, in his tux and looking handsome. 

And still alive.

It hadn’t happened yet. What was it that Don said again? That Dina blamed him. She thought it was his fault. Well, that made things all the more obvious. If she saw Dina, she’d have to distract her.

She caught a glimpse of Mortimer talking to Cassandra but couldn’t hear the conversation. She glided closer in hopes of hearing, but something was wrong.  “Donnnnn……But…Doooooon….leffft–” The way the conversation flowed. “Daaadddd….what-you-...what–...are-....youuuu–” The words skipped and garbled like they were filtered through radio waves and back again.  

Something wasn’t right. Her chest tightened as she tried to steady her breath. Another pulse of electrical waves coursed through the air. 

Bella followed Mortimer as he paced toward the rose bushes out front and spoke to them. She saw the sudden panic in Mortimer’s eyes as he looked warily at the rose petals. 

“Pink?” she heard him say that word. 

With a wave of her hands, she parted the rosebushes without touching them and spotted Don, cowering in them in his wedding tuxedo.  She rolled her eyes in irritation. Bella tried to grab him upright – but her hands slid through him like he was made of water.  

Stuck between reality and the ether was maddening. She turned when she heard the sound of a heavy thud. Mortimer had suddenly collapsed on the ground near the wedding in the backyard. He came to briefly, looking up at the sky. Mortimer’s eyes flew open as he sat upright and one word rang out, clear on his lips, “Bella?”

~~~~

It didn’t matter what she did; the same result always transpired. Cassandra would anxiously wait for Don who would inevitably flee from the scene like he was committing a crime. Mortimer would fall – life leaving his body so quickly. Bella would panic.  

And then the world would go pink, as it broke apart in clanking sounds of metallic noise and dissolving particles. 

Each time and every time. Until she was back where they started. 

In one instance, Bella was grateful when Mortimer hailed a taxi with a valise in hand and fled the scene himself. Hopefully he escaped his own death too. Bella was stuck at her home with no viable means of escape. It was fitting as she was stuck – both back at home and not. A force and presence yet invisible and unseen; merely energy without matter. She was a living ghost in her own home.

Bella drifted and found Dina speaking to Don, in the foyer. Under the seeming appearance of privacy with no one in sight – at least not physically.

“You need to go through with it, Don,” Dina’s voice was hushed yet insistent. “If you don’t–”

“What are you going to do? Expose me? I can expose you, Dina.”

“And I can make you disappear just as easily as Bella.”

The air pulsed with an electrical charge. Don and Dina startled and glanced around, both feeling the strange static zap from nowhere. 

Bella’s breath hitched at the revelation. Her own sister-in-law orchestrated her disappearance? She was the reason that this happened to her. Bella’s mind reeled. But how?

“Just make it happen, Don.” Dina pressed a finger into his chest, her green eyes set on him with malicious intent. “Marry Cassandra. Leave Mortimer to me. Think of the windfall you’ll receive from having that money.” 

Don shook his head, taking a step back. “The money isn’t important to me, Dee.”

Dina rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever you say. Like your condo isn’t decked out beyond your cost of living, right? I’m sure the ER pays you well to afford that hot tub.”

Bella’s fists clenched, nails that would draw marks into her flesh if she were more opaque in this world. Her eyes set on Dina as her pulse raged with fury.

“After you're married, do whatever you will to Cassandra. Just leave me Morty,” Dina reiterated as she turned to walk away.  “We can always make her disappear too, if we need.”

Don stood in the foyer, head lowered in deliberation. The echo of Dina’s heels on the parquet floors reverberated in the room as she walked out the front door.  

Bella moved closer to study Don’s face. She moved under him to see.  His eyes were searching, thinking. 

“What are you thinking in that foolish head of yours, Don?” Bella wondered aloud. “Why are you even involved with Dina in any of this?” 

Don’s head lifted as if he heard her. Bella paused, eyes wide in curiosity as she looked into his eyes, hopeful he could see her.

But the moment ended as he walked through her ethereal body, shifting the translucent particles of her being, and slapped his fist on the lid of Chimeway piano. He huffed a breath of disappointment, fixed the lapels of his tux, and slowly walked back to the garden.

Bella considered her options. She could manipulate things through the air and move objects. Perhaps she didn’t need to save Mortimer; she simply needed to save her daughter from this doomed wedding.

~~~~

She couldn’t even fault Don anymore for being part of this plot; but she could find plenty with Dina. Bella began to make it her personal mission to quietly antagonize Dina every chance she got. 

While she walked through the aisle to take her seat, Dina’s chair mysteriously disappeared as she crouched down, tumbling undignified into the grass. It was the bare minimum that Bella could do for petty revenge.

In another version of the day, Bella caught Dina trying to flirt with Mortimer. As she was readying to cup Mortimer’s face with her hand and influence him with her feminine wiles, Bella created a rogue gust of wind that messed up her hair, blowing strands all over her face in a tangled mess. 

Another time, Dina sought out Don in private to speak of their plans. Bella would cause her sister-in-law to randomly stumble, or get sudden sharp pains in her side like someone jabbed her. Yet Dina would look around, confused and anxious, as she realized no one else was there.  

It was all for naught, though, as the same results of the day happened over and over: Cassandra would be heartbroken by Don’s caddish behavior; Dina would still be plotting to steal Bella’s husband; and Mortimer would inexplicably live his last day as the pink soupy matter overwhelmed their world while Bella grieved his death. 

No matter what Bella tried – shifting people into different places, antagonizing Dina, trying to warn her family – it all ended the same.

And Bella was realizing –  just as a blinding white light with a strange metallic hum enveloped her – that there was nothing in her power to change their fates.