Bookworms
Note: this takes place before the events of 'hunger pangs'
It wasn’t often that Jenny got time off work, her hours were hectic, her free time was spent sleeping or catching up on the important things she had missed. She didn’t get much of a chance to just go out and do things that interested her, particularly since at the moment her brother was crashing down at her place and she needed to get some time away.
Granted, standing in a large bookstore, perusing the medical section and looking at other text books. Her finger ran along the spines of books like Med School Confidential and Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment 2010. It went from the technical books that would make her spin to Medical Terminology for Dummies which she picked up and opened, flicking through idly to see what was inside. She had never read any of the ‘for dummies’ books before. She thought about the woman she had met before she’d met Rhiannon, Izzy. Her phone felt heavy in the pocket of her jeans, but that was probably just because she had another desperate text from her brother waiting for a reply.
She thumbed idly through the book, eyes picking up on key pages, enjoying the humour in the way that it was written. It wasn’t actually that bad. She was surprised.
She chewed her lower lip as she thumbed through the pages, closing it eventually and running her fingertip along the spines of the book of the shelf again as she wandered down the aisle.
There was just something comforting about bookshops, the smell of the books and the fact that people were so relaxed when surrounded by the pages, transported into their own world. Escapism made people happy.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, hesitating before she ignored the new text from her brother, finding where she had programmed Izzy’s number into her cell.
Hey, it’s Jenny, from the coffee shop? The one that almost toppled into you? Well, I figured I’d just get in touch and say hi. Yeah... Got some precious time off, am indulging in shopping! Hope you’re okay.
She pressed send and then slipped the cell back into her pocket, moving towards the art section to have a browse through those books.
Izzy inspected the few bookcases on technical subjects in an effort to rebuild her reference library, again. This time she didn't have her pocket computer come along with her and so she was starting from scratch. It was a bit depressing, since the computer'd had a good chunk of her reference standards on tech-magic and had saved her from having to do extra computations on more than one occasion. Now she had to work everything out from memory and memory could be a faulty instrument.
The witch had just picked up a tome on electrical engineering and started thumbing through it when her phone went off. She put down the book and pulled her phone out of her coat pocket, eyebrows rising in surprise when the sender was revealed.
Hi there! Glad to hear you got some time off, always want our doctors bright eyed and ready to go when on the job. I'm fine and doing some shopping myself, trying to rebuild my reference library. Talk to you soon!
Izzy hit 'send' and pocketed the phone again before resuming her perusal of the book.
Jenny jumped a little as her phone buzzed in her pocket as she left the arts section, wandering aimlessly towards the more technical science-y section, one that Jenny had been addicted to as a young woman, when she was a teenager and a student, losing herself particularly in things about space, astronomy had always caught her attention, fascinated her.
She paused at the end of an aisle and pulled out her phone, glancing at it before pushing 'reply'. Beginning to type out a message, a head of blonde hair caught her attention. "Izzy?" she started, kind of hoping that it was who she thought otherwise this whole affair could be very embarrassing.
But there wasn't much point in sending a text and a reply to someone who was standing a few meters away from her.
Izzy turned around at the question and smiled in greeting to the other woman. "Jenny, hello. I guess we're both shopping in the same place aren't we?"
Jenny laughed, "Well, I'm glad it is actually you and not just some look-a-like." She grinned and then rubbed the back of her neck. "I guess so." She smiled, "Found anything interesting?"
"Depends on what you think is interesting," Izzy smiled wryly and hoisted the book so the doctor could read the title. "I've only just gotten here and haven't had a chance to see everything they have to offer. How has your day off been so far?"
"Slow, it's always... weird when I'm off work, I never quite know what to do with myself." Jenny looked at the title and tipped her head, "At least you're breaking type, you know, from your job. I was over in the medical section, looking at medical books." How boring was she? Psychic abilities aside. "I just kind of enjoy being surrounded by books."
"Books are our friends." Izzy intoned knowingly, having spent many years with her eyes glued to a book during her studies. "Unless I'm desperate I don't think I'll ever pick up a book on customer service or the hospitality industry outside of work." She paused, and reconsidered that statement a bit. "Maybe if I ever get the desire to start my own place, like a bed and breakfast, but no way aside from that."
Jenny smiled, "That's the- Yeah, that would be a good reason for picking up hospitality books. Though, they might be interesting, usually the ones about nightmare customers are fun." Her eyes roamed over the shelves. Nothing in the section was like anything she'd ever read. Maybe she should pick something up, if she saw something that caught her attention. "Well, considering how many books there are out there, I doubt you'll ever really be out of something to read so you'll always be able to stay away from the customer service section." She felt a little sad that she never got much of a chance to read anymore.
Izzy nodded. "I'll probably spend more time tinkering than I will reading, but I want to have good reference materials to fall back on when I need them. Here, I'm starting out from scratch." While she had a home, clothes and money in this dimension, she had no technical references of any kind. Not even a frigging dictionary!
"You probably don't get a lot of time to do much of anything at this point in your career, do you?" Izzy eyed the doctor sympathetically. She'd known a few doctors back home and the first couple years out of medical school had been hell.
"Tinkering?" Jenny asked, thinking back to what she'd heard the last time they had talked; something about engineering? Or technology? And there was magic too, many mentions of magic. A part of her was burning to ask more, to find out more, but she managed to restrain herself, not ask anything too personal. They were still out in public after all, and the world was blissfully unaware of the Supernatural. It all worked better that way. "Sounds like fun."
There was a moment before Jenny answered, wondering what technical references Izzy would need to do engineering if she'd done it before - since Jenny was going to assume that, like Rhiannon, some kind of alternate reality switch had happened - but then maybe it was something that needed constant reference? She shook her head in agreement, "No, I don't. But that's- that's all part and parcel of the job, really, and I graduated not that long ago so I gotta work hard to prove myself."
"The payoff is worth it, or it's supposed to be anyway." Izzy nodded. Her own program hadn't been as brutal as medical school and then residency afterward, but it had been pretty damn hard. Then there was always the need to prove you knew what you were doing once you got out into the real world. "How far into your residency are you again?"
"Graduated in the summer," Jenny smiled, "So not very far at all. I was lucky, I already had this job when I left med-school, my mentor at college liked me." She lifted her shoulders and rubbed the back of her neck. It was supposed to be worth it in the end, once she'd proven herself and was not as second-guessed as she was at the moment. The other residents were being ridden just as hard, but she just felt frustrated because she knew that there were some things that needed to be done to save patients and no one was listening to her. She'd sent a man for a colonoscopy and been chewed out for it, even though she'd had a feeling there was something serious happening. She had been right; the man had stomach cancer. "Once I'm more- more experienced and when I've got more of a standing then I'll feel better about it all."
"Oh man," Izzy winced. Just from what she knew watching medical dramas on television, first year residents were put through a baptism of fire. "That was lucky that you had a program waiting for you when you graduated."
She wasn't sure what else to say to the woman, really. They'd only just met the other day, and there was the fact Jenny was a telepath. "Is your family helping you out at all, since you're living in the same town?"
"I wish," Jenny said with a small laugh. Her family were a little too busy; her mom was still sick and her brother was a waste of space and always needed money. She'd lent (read: given) him almost $400 in the last two months and he never seemed to actually have any money. She tilted her head, glancing around them for a moment before she said, "I- I've got something to ask you and it might seem a bit weird. But not creepy weird, just kind of- I made an observation and I saw someone else that reminded me of you and I- yeah..."
She just wanted to know why it felt like Izzy's mind didn't quite belong to the physical form, like that feeling she'd received from Rhiannon. There was no one around, the bookstore was more deserted than she'd seen it in a long time. Everyone was broke after Christmas, apparently.
Izzy raised an eyebrow at the question but nodded. She had an idea of the kind of person Jenny might have run into but would let the telepath ask the question. "Go ahead."
"Your-" Jenny paused, trying to work out how to explain what she was thinking about without causing insult to the woman. She wiggled her fingers and then put her hands in her pockets. "I don't mean to be insulting, I just don't quite know how else to explain it..." She wet her lower lip. "Your mind doesn't fit. I mean- it does, but it doesn't at the same time. Like it's not-"
She blew out a frustrated breath at not being able to make sense. "I met someone else, and she- she said that she'd come from somewhere else. Another place like here, and there, she knew me. Except, not me. Because she seemed really surprised that I'm a doctor." She tapped her fingers against her thighs, thumbs now hooked in her belt loops. "And you- your mind feels like hers. Yours not but not quite, something different."
"Wow," Izzy blinked at the flow of words and the knowledge contained in them. Jenny had been able to tell all that telepathically? Impressive.
"You're right. I'm not from here, my mind isn't at least." She said in a low tone that wouldn't carry after glancing about to make sure there wasn't anyone in earshot. "I was from another dimension, and one minute I was there, the next I was here. My body, but younger than what I was in the other place."
Jenny looked fascinated. "That's- incredible. I always wondered if there was something like that, alternate worlds out there, but I never knew- There was no way of being sure of it." She smiled and glanced around again. There was still no one around. Good.
"So it was like a transfer? Stop me if I'm being too nosy, I'm just fascinated. It's- always been theorised, but no one's been able to prove it before. The person who taught me tentative control talked about it, and magic, but because I can't do magic, I was always curious."
"I'm not sure what you'd call it," Izzy mused, pondering the occurrence herself. "I'm more of a copy, I think. I'm pretty sure the me back in the other dimension is still going about her business as if nothing were amiss, don't ask me why."
"One minute I was standing in Chicago in 2014, watching a wall of light sweeping over everything, the next I was standing in the water off Fort Taylor a few months ago."
"I can do magic, I'm a witch, techno-mage if you really want to be technical about it." That was what she'd been trained as anyway.
That would explain why the minds felt a little...strange. If they were an overlap from somewhere else, like copying a file from one part of a hard-drive to another. Not the original - of either. That was bound to create some kind of static or a fuzz around someone's mind. She had been trying to think about what could have caused it, but now it made perfect sense.
"So you didn't only come from some other place, but from some other time. You're- you're in such a privileged position, but what about the person that was here before?" Jenny asked, taking a moment to pull herself back, reign herself in. "Sorry- I- God, I think it'd be awesome to experience life somewhere else." And she wanted to know what she was like, the other her, the one Rhiannon had known.
Another pause, and it was possible to see the delight spreading across Jenny's face. "Really? That's- that's so cool!"
A small frown appeared on Izzy's face at the mention of the her that was here before. "I have her memories, most of them anyway, but she's gone." And good riddance to her, empty headed social butterfly that she had been, to put it kindly.
She had to laugh at the other woman's reaction, it was just so different from anything she'd expected in this dimension. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I'm not trying to be mean, honest. It's just that the words that just came out of your mouth were such a surprise."
"Hm? Oh, don't worry," Jenny smiled. "I totally understand. Believe it or not there are some people that know about things that go bump in the night. I've known about them since I was really young." She rubbed the back of her neck again and looked at Izzy. "I'm glad that I didn't offend you with my moment of... fangirling."
"No, it just isn't something I'm used to at all." Izzy shook her head, still smiling. "This is actually the third different dimension I've been to. The one I grew up in, magic and the supernatural were out in the open and had been as long as anyone could remember. I made a mistake on a project I was working on and I wound up in the dimension I came here from about two years ago in my past, a few years from now in this dimension. I never did figure out what I'd done to cause it, but this last time was completely out of nowhere."
Jenny nodded, taking in what Izzy was saying, just listening to what she was being told her fascinating growing with each passing fact. Three dimensions? So there were different universes with people in, so many different options and choices, places and people all the same but different. And if someone crossed between the two, the way that Rhiannon and Izzy had, then they were a copy, writing over the person that was there before with a duplicate of someone else.
Kind of like some kind of inter-dimensional body-snatcher. Not that she said that because that would cause offense. "Was there anything you guys all had in common? I'm guessing there's more than one of you that came over from... wherever you did?" Not that Jenny had any idea of what might have happened. It just seemed like a question that was always asked when weird things happened. But jumping through time and space? Very intriguing, and Jenny was fascinated. Maybe this had something to do with the sudden surge in people arriving in her hospital? Or maybe that was just the sudden increase in gang violence. God, she was scared that one day she'd get a patient (or a DOA) that was her brother. She didn't know what circles he ran in anymore.
"I'm not sure," Izzy rubbed the back of her neck and shrugged. "I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I'm the only one that this happened to you but I couldn't give you a rhyme or reason as to why. The only connection I can give you is that everyone that I know about seems to be aware of the supernatural, and are involved with it somehow." Either as witches, slayers, or agents.
"You say the other person you met knew a version of you from the other dimension? I've had that happen to me too, seeing someone that I knew from before, but they didn't know anything about it. Not that I asked directly, but there wasn't any recognition in their eyes." She remembered Joseph, and Hayden too now. Neither of the men had any memories of the other dimension.
"So it's like some of the people from where you came from before - which I'm guessing isn't Key West - are all here too, but not the same way you are? Weird." She tilted her head after a moment, watching Izzy again as she spoke. "I'm- that must be horrible," she added a moment later as an afterthought, almost like she'd been caught up in the fascination so much she'd forgotten that seeing someone have no recognition of you would probably really hurt. "I mean- I'm sorry, I hadn't thought about that. It must be kind of hard."
The comment about the Supernatural intrigued her. Kris was a Slayer, what if there was another Kris in another world? Maybe she was a slayer too. Was she a cop? Did Jenny know her? So many questions and she knew she'd never get them answered, it was just a part of her she'd have to suppress. "Maybe it's the Supernatural element then that had something to do with it. I mean, after all, maybe you guys knew something you shouldn't and whoever's up there, God or Fate or the Powers that Be or, y'know, whatever's actually up there maybe decided that you knew something and needed to be moved? Or copied somewhere that needs you?" She gave a small smile, "Maybe you got transferred over because you're special?"
"That would be a nice thought," Izzy conceded. "There has to be some kind of reason we were brought here, but I have no idea why some of us would be transferred and others brought here as they are here. I guess we'll find out eventually, I hope so anyway. There isn't anything I can do about it, so I just try to live life as best I can. At least I ended up someplace warm this time, instead of somewhere I would freeze in during winter."
She looked over at Jenny. "So how did you get trained in your gift? You mentioned a mentor who helped you when you were younger?"
"I guess all you can do is wait and see," Jenny agreed. "Where were you before? I mean, Key West's gorgeous, can't imagine living anywhere else, myself." She gave a smile and rubbed a hand through her hair. It was nice to just have it down instead of up as she did when she was at work. "You weren't in Alaska or anything, right?"
Jenny paused, chewing her lower lip for a moment at the question. "I- when I was younger I met a woman who could do the same sort of thing as me. Used to get away from my parents to speak to her because she believed me when no one else did." It wasn't the truth, technically: she'd been locked up and the woman was crazy but spoke sense to the young woman. "And she taught me as much as she could before she was...taken away."
"Gods no," Izzy chuckled. "If the portal had dumped me in Alaska wild horses wouldn't have stopped me from finding a way to get back to the southern part of the lower forty-eight. I wound up in Chicago, and got involved in what was going on there at the time so never made my way back south."
She listened sympathetically to Jenny's explanation of what happened to the other woman's teacher. "I'm sorry, that had to have been hard for you. I'm glad she taught you enough to keep you out of trouble yourself."
Jenny laughed quietly, "Chicago isn't too bad, I guess?" she asked, tilting her head to look at Izzy with a small smile. "And I don't blame you; I woulda done the same thing. My mom wanted me to go to way up north for my Med School, but I really didn't want to move too far away from the places that actually get to see the sun."
There was a moment where Jenny nodded, thinking back about the woman with the crazy hair and the wild eyes, who had spent a lot of time babbling at her, not having enough time, never enough time. "She taught me enough, but she didn't have enough time... never enough time." She took a second to pull herself out of the past. "I'm glad too. It was nice to have someone to teach me, otherwise I don't think I'd be where I am now."
Izzy nodded. "I can understand that. Where I came from psychics got a lot of help in learning how to control their powers. They were a lot rarer than magic users, but they could cause a lot of harm to themselves and others if not given some kind of training, so the state took care of it."
"Yeah... I can imagine that," Jenny said, having caused a certain amount of harm to others herself in her time as a young woman without control of her powers. When she was unaware of the effects or even what she was doing. "Magic users... I wonder if they're more common here. I certainly haven't- I never really considered it."
"I'm not sure, but I know of at least one more magic user here in Key West and I knew several back in Chicago." Izzy told the other woman. "They're more common than you might think, but they can be across the spectrum in terms of talent and ability." Personally she placed herself on the high end of both categories. It might be arrogant of her but that's just the way it was.
"Who was the other person you met like me?" Izzy was curious if it was one of the few she already knew about or if it was someone new.
Jenny smiled, "Sounds fun," she leaned her shoulder against the bookcase nearby, glad that it was sturdy. Thankfully the shop was still mostly-empty, it was the middle of the day, people had better things to be doing than standing in bookstores, apparently.
She hesitated for a moment before she said, "Her name's Rhiannon." It wasn't a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality to give a name, just as long as nothing else was divulged. Patient names were never an issue, it was the details. She wet her lower lip, "Her mind felt like yours, just a little... out of place."
"Oh! I know Rhiannon, she's a friend of mine." Izzy smiled. "I knew her from before, good woman. If you ever need someone to have your back in a tough situation you can't do better than her."
Jenny gave a small smile. "Sounds like there's more than one of you that came over from... wherever it was." She wondered if the woman that had all but exploded in that small room was a good, reliable woman. Maybe Jenny had caught her on a bad day. "Hopefully there won't be any tough situations here... Key West is a nice place. Getting the impression where you came from wasn't so much...?"
"My original dimension?" Izzy shook her head. "Not at all, it wasn't any more rough than it would be here. Chicago was different though in the last one." She hesitated a moment, not wanting to scare the other woman with what had happened up north. There was no reason to think it would happen here, but...
"Up in Chicago a rift or portal opened briefly about a year before I arrived and turned Lincoln Park into something out of a hell dimension. The Army had it quarantined and most of the creatures were dead by the time I arrived, but there was one last event that summer. I'd never heard of something like that happening before so it might have been unique to that dimension."
Jenny looked at Izzy for a minute before she filed the information away. Hopefully something like that wouldn't happen here. Just because it had happened in one place didn't mean it was guaranteed to happen somewhere else. Nothing was certain and all that.
"God, that's- that's terrible. I'm guessing there were people in place, I mean, whether they were meant to be there or not to help out? I mean, as far as I understand it, whoever's up there pulling the strings is good at making people appear bang on time when they're supposed to be around." She gave a small smile and tapped her fingers against the side of her neck. She had a headache brewing. "I guess you know what to look out for though, right? So it won't happen here?"
"I think this was more a mystical version of a natural disaster," Izzy ventured, not quite sure of the theory but it seemed to fit with what she remembered from school. "Something equivalent to a mega earthquake or a supervolcano erupting, very rare but devastating when they happen. I haven't seen anything that would make me think it would happen here."
She wondered how they'd gotten on this train of thought as she glanced out toward the rest of the bookstore from the alcove they were currently in. "So do you get more than one day off in a row or is it back to the hospital tomorrow?" There, subject changed to something a bit more mundane.
"Back to the hospital, I'm afraid," Jenny said with a half-laugh and a self deprecating shrug. "No rest for the wicked. I like being busy though, keeps me going." She smiled and just ran with the conversation change, letting it slip away from natural disasters and scary mythical events. "We don't get a lot of time off and usually we end up being called in." She pushed her jacket aside to show her beeper. "This goes off like crazy and we don't get a say in whether or not we go in."
"Well, at least you like being busy." Izzy smiled and tucked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. "It would realaybmen were in. He just grunted at her, intent on finding whatever book that had his intrest. The witch shook her head, smirking a little at the sad sight before returning her attention to Jenny.
"What else is on your agenda today?"
"Nothing," Jenny admitted gleefully, it wasn't often that she didn't have anything else to do with her time and she was looking forward to going home and just relaxing, even if her brother was hanging around. "I was just planning on wandering around for a while before I have to go back to work."
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, "Exciting, I know. But it's nice, not to do anything and to have no one demanding your time." She wet her lower lip, "What about you?"
"Just doing some shopping," the tech-witch shrugged as well. "I wanted to get a few new outfits as well as start working on my rebuilding my reference library. Then I need to figure out what I'm going to do for food tonight, I don't really feel like going out and its every woman for herself at my house. None of my roommates can cook worth a damn, and a few of them could probably burn water."
Jenny laughed, "I know that feeling," she put her hands in her pockets, "One of my housemate's a police officer, so she's not around very often at all, but the other one? I swear... he lives off take out because the last time he tried to cook he set fire to the stupid girly apron he was wearing." The memory made her smile.
A glance at the time told her that she had probably taken up more than enough of Izzy's time today, especially if she had actual things to be doing with her time rather than just bumming around and enjoying having nothing to do. "But burning water... that's quite a talent." she chuckled and pulled her hair over one shoulder. "Guess I should let you get back to it." She glanced at the shelves, "I should probably go do something productive with my time, like sleep," or take care of her brother. She offered a rueful smile.
"With your schedule?" Izzy laughed and smiled in genuine humor at the statement. "I know I would get as much sleep as I could get during what downtime I had. Take care of yourself and don't be a stranger ok? Call me sometime and we'll get together for lunch or something, or go out on your next free day."
"Will do," Jenny said with a smile as she took a couple of steps backwards. "Lunch sounds good, somewhere with seats would be nice." She indicated the lack of anywhere to sit in their immediate vicinity and smiled again, bright and genuine. "You take care of yourself too and I'll talk to you soon."
She turned on her heel and headed towards the exit, pausing to look back at Izzy and offer her a parting wave. Friends. Friends were good. She liked friends.
But for now? Actually, faceplanting into bed and sleeping the rest of the day away sounded like a really, really good idea.