jksutton (jksutton) wrote in spinningcompass, @ 2017-03-06 21:10:00 |
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It only took John about five minutes to get from where he was to the diner. It looked much the same as it did in the future, even the woman behind the counter. He remembered something about her being immortal. What was her name again? "Hey there, sugar, you look lost. You new around here?" The woman asked. "Sort of." John made a face, then his eyes widened briefly. "Isabel, that's it!" She laughed and nodded. "Sort of new it is. I'm afraid I don't know your name." "John. I'm John. I'm waiting for JR." "Go ahead and have a seat, sweetie. I'll bring you a drink." She smiled. John nodded and took a seat in a booth within sight of the door. He drummed his fingers on the table as he waited. ----- JR arrived fifteen minutes after John walked in, wearing boots, jeans and a sweater. She'd spent about two minutes debating what to wear, Elyssa had some really nice clothes that JR wanted to wear while she could still fit in them, but in the end had decided on something more gender neutral to avoid freaking Sutton out. The situation was weird, but on the island you really just had to roll with the weird and embrace it. Otherwise it would just drive you crazy. "Hiya Aunt Isabelle." She gave the woman a peck on the cheek as she walked in, then spotted Sutton and made her over to the other Marine's table. "You look a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you. No blood or mud for starters." She put out a hand. "How you been, Sutton?" ----- John got to his feet as soon as the good looking redhead walked in. He stared for a minute when she came over and started talking. When his brain kicked in he shook the offered hand. His hair was longer and he had a full beard now. "I'm alive." He shrugged. "Leg never healed quite right, but I am independently mobile so that's good." He unabashedly checked out his battle buddy. "You weren't kidding when you said hot." ------ She winced in sympathy at his words and nodded. "I hear you, independently mobile and still having all your bits is better than a lot of guys. I took some shell fragments on Peleilu and damn near bled to death before I could be evacuated off the line. No lasting damage for me though." When he checked her out JR just smirked and let out a throaty chuckle that probably sounded sexy as hell to his old squad mate. She held up her left hand with its wedding ring prominently exposed. "Sorry, off the market but I know what you mean. I've counted myself lucky that she agreed to marry me and not just for the smoking hot body." ----- "That's good. The no lasting damage." John nodded. He had heard some stories about other battles. He gestured for JR to take a seat before he did. "You definitely lucked out. I mean, I could barely put up with you for a few days. She's got to be great to be willing to deal with you forever." He smirked. ------- JR sat down in the seat across from John and nodded her agreement. "You're telling me. Elyssa hasn't murdered me yet so I guess she means to keep me around. I consider myself to a very lucky person to get her to agree to marry me and to love me like she does. I'm thankful every day. I'll have to introduce the two of you, she'd enjoy meeting another fellow vet." Isabel came over with John's drink and JR ordered a decaf coffee for herself. She dearly wanted something stronger, but no booze and no caffeine as long as she was in this body and pregnant. "So you said you had questions?" ---- "She's a vet, too?" He didn't bother trying to hide the impressed look on his face. He nodded his thanks to Isabel and took a sip from his drink. "Just....basically everything you weren't willing to tell me back in the thick of it." He shrugged. "So you said you grew up here?" ----- "Not only is she a vet, she's saved humanity a couple times in her reality." JR replied, feeling so proud of Elyssa she could burst. "She's something like the frogmen and underwater demolitions guys in our war, only a lot more highly skilled and in outer space a couple hundred years from now. They trace the history of their outfit back to those guys." A most unladylike snort. "Even in my body she could probably kick our asses without breaking a sweat." She sipped her coffee and thought about where to start. "Okay. I told you I was from a big family right? There's twelve of us in the original timeline I'm from. This is technically my past, there's a version of me at my parents that is about six months old right now." ----- "So she's one that's the best to send in because they don't see her coming." John nodded. He was still having to wrap his head around time travel but it was getting there. "Where are you in the line-up?" Another bit if time travel. Great. "So you're here as an adult and as a baby. That has to be weird." He took another drink and sighed. "Though I think I would like to meet your family. It would explain so much." John smirked again. He couldn't keep from poking fun. ----- "Something like that." JR nodded in reply. She was looking forward to showing him the Normandy sometime, and the body armor she'd used to help fight off the reapers. "I'm the eldest son and third born, my twin sister Juliet came along about ten minutes after I did." She chuckled. "And it is weird, but I look at all the youngsters as either younger siblings or neices and nephews. It's strange, but it works. Right now there are four of us grown kids running around in this timeline. There were more, but the Island took them back to their own times." JR wasn't happy about it, but there wasn't anything that could be done about it. "My family would be thrilled to meet you I think, to meet someone from my past that they don't know." ------ "I'm glad you found somebody that gets it." He cleared his throat. When JR talked about his family, John smiled. "How much time did you spend in makeup?" He didn't have older sisters but he had known some kids that did. ------ "More than I ever cared to growing up." JR laughed, thinking back to those days. The experience had come in handy since being switched to the body she had at the moment but that wasn't something Sutton needed to know. "Let's see, what else? " Fingers drummed on the table. "Have people explained how this place works?" Obviously he had some idea since he wasn't freaking about JR's current gender, but it never hurt to ask. ----- John laughed and shook his head. "You wouldn't trade it for anything though, would you?" He had always wanted siblings. "I got some explanation when I first got here, some I figured out. Place waited three whole months before fucking with me." He sighed. ------ "Never." JR nodded vigorously in agreement. "Both my older sisters are here in this time line, I'll have to introduce you." A pause as she had another sip of coffee. "Another thing about my family: both my parents are from different realities and timelines. Mom is a technomage and engineer from a reality where magic coexists out in the open with technology. She was trying to develop a permanent teleporter and eventually wound up here. My dad is a xenobotanist from a reality a few hundred years from now, he was going to go out and study the plants of a world called Pandora. Instead he found himself here. " She smiled. "They met and fell in love and moms been popping out kids ever since." ------ "Maybe we can it ways to torture you." John chuckled. He finished his drink and sat back. "That actually sounds pretty great. It's good that they're happy." He nodded. "This weird timeline shit....are your parents actually old enough to be your parents right now?" It was giving him a headache but he was trying. ------ "Eh the island does a great job of that on its own." JR shrugged. While being in Elyssa's body was hardly torture, it would nice to be back in the proper body and be a 'he' again. Hopefully it would happen before the morning sickness started. "Haha, no. " A head shake and JR leaned back in the booth, not bothering to hide the amusement. " They're both around thirty right now. It's messed up I know, but we've all gotten used to it. Mom freaked right out when Rachel and Sarah showed up the first time, or so I'm told. She and Dad had just started dating and their teenage kids from the future suddenly started showing up." ------ "I guess that's true enough. This place likes to mess with your head." He nodded. John laughed softly. "I can imagine that. The freaking out. Must have been insane." He was about to motion to Isabel and blinked when his drink magically refilled in front if him. "I forgot about that." ------ "That's something of an understatement." JR intoned before having another sip of coffee. "Yeah, she didn't take well to the news she was going to have a dozen kids with a guy she hardly knew. Then anyway." JR smirked. "Now and growing up it seemed like she was constantly pregnant, so I guess she's gotten around to liking the idea." An outright laugh as both their drinks refilled. "Aunt Isabel is great. Scary if you stop and think about what she can do, but great. Just don't wish for anything aloud, you never know what might happen." ------ "That's good. You probably wouldn't exist if she hadn't changed her mind." He cleared his throat. JR not existing could have meant his death. "I got told that rule, yeah. She's still around when I first arrived. I didn't spend much time in the diner but when I was there she treated me like family." He took another drink. "There's still a lot to wrap my head around." ----- "Maybe." A shrug. "I like to think I'd have still made the cut, being third born. But I'd miss all my siblings." He'd been a squad leader by the end of Cape Gloucester, would whoever took the position if he hadn't been there done as good a job keeping 'his' Marines alive? It wasn't something JR wanted to think about. "She's still around two hundred years from now?" That was a surprise, but a welcome one. Isabel was great and JR was glad to know that she'd still be around long after every normal person on the island alive today was nothing but bones. "Good for her." ----- "Either way, lucky for both of us she likes a big family." He nodded. "I think somebody said something about her being immortal or something like that." He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started looking through the list. "There are a couple of names on here that are familiar but I didn't really get to know anybody." He kept looking through the named. "Rachel a common name in your family?" ------ "Definitely." An eyebrow quirked. "Well Rachel is one of my older sisters, I'm sure if we follow mom's example of trying to take over the island by outbreeding everyone else it'll be pretty common." ------ John shook his head and put his phone away. "There's a Rachel Sully in the future so that's why I asked." He shrugged. "Probably just recycled the name or something." ------ "Wouldn't surprise me. If I have daughters one for sure will be named after Rach." JR nodded. "So how long was it since the war ended before the island snatched you? You don't look too much older so it can't have been that long." ----- "I'll have to meet her." John nodded. He sighed and ran both hands through his hair. "It was 48 when I got popped here. Two hundred years in the future and then 130 in the past." He shook his head. ------ "She's great. Raising twin two year old boys on her own. The guy she was with disappeared a few months ago though, it was a rough time. JR laughed. "And I'm willing to bet both are equally strange to you." ------ "That does sound rough. But it's cool that she's handling it." He nodded, then laughed. "Very strange. Though seeing you with tits is amusing." He smirked. ------ "I'm sure." JR responded with a shake of her head. "Be careful, the island could decide you need to see how the other half lives." ------ "If the body it puts me in doesn't have a limp and a leg that aches pretty much constantly then I think I would be okay with that." He rubbed his thigh unconsciously. ------ JR frowned. "I'm sorry man, I didn't realize it still hurt." They'd done an amazing job of putting his leg back together for the tech level in the 1940s. "There are a couple doctors on the island, not to mention magic users like Aunt Isabel. You ought to get it looked at and see if they can help." ------ John waved off the apology and then shrugged. "If it gets too much to be tolerable I might. Right now it's a pretty good reminder that I'm still alive." When he first got to the island he was convinced he was dead. ----- "How long were you in the hospital and rehab?" JR remembered his own stint vividly, though he'd been more upset at being separated from his unit at first than anything else. Who would look after his squad with him gone? Until the division was pulled from Peleliu it had eaten at him, too many good Marines had died for that worthless rock. ----- "Only about a month in the hospital but rehab took a year." It had more to do with his attitude than anything else, though. "Wouldn't have been so long in the hospital but I managed to catch an infection. Thank God for penicillin, right?" It hadn't been in use very long when he was treated. ------ "Definitely." JR agreed. While she'd seen all manner of antibiotics and exotic cures here on the island, back in the 40's it had been a very new thing indeed. If not for antibiotics there was every chance he wouldn't be a she sitting in the diner right now. "So what was the 22nd century like? Were there lots of people on the island?" ----- "Quite a few, yeah." John nodded. "Probably a thousand or so. And there's always enough room for everybody. It's weird." He shrugged. "Lots of Sullys and lots of Rogers." He chuckled. ----- "Yeah there would be a lot of Rogers." JR nodded, thinking aloud. "You remember the newsreels about Captain America back when we were overseas? He's here, a couple different versions of him actually. I grew up with his son." Explaining that that son was yet another version of Steve Rogers was a story for another day. "And the Sullys will be related to everyone in a couple generations if mom has her way." ----- "He is still around in that time." John nodded. "I didn't really talk to him but I knew who he was." John chuckled at the comment. "Won't take much the way you talk. There are a lot of you." ------ "True." She smiled, thinking of the child or children growing inside her at that very moment. Hers and Elyssa's, whoever ended up giving birth in this body. "She's only got four grandkids from us grownup kids in this timeline so far, but I'm sure there'll be more coming soon enough." ------ "How many of you are adults now?" It was a lot to deal with but having been on the island for a bit was making it easier. "You know....I tried to send you a few letters when I could. After I got sent home. I don't know if you ever got them." He finished his drink and started drumming his fingers on the table. ------ "There are four of us here at the moment. My older sisters Rachel and Sarah, and my younger sister Rhiannon." She thought of Juliet, gone just a few weeks ago, and then smiled at a happier thought. "Rhiannon is from further along in the timeline than the rest of us, so she's older than everyone and has a little girl named Izzy after mom. That kid's a real treat." ------ "Another one I'll have to meet." He smiled. "I'm looking forward to it, you know?" ------ "I'm sure you are. They'll love to tell stories." JR felt secure that there wasn't anything too embarrassing in those stories, and there wouldn't be any way to stop it from coming out if there was. "The time after Peleliu I was bounced around a lot until right before the island snatched me back, between the hospital, rehab, and instructor school I wasn't in any one place or unit for more than two months. So I was lucky if I got any mail at all. " She felt a little bad that he'd written but the mail hadn't caught up with all the changes in location. ----- John nodded. "Can't wait to hear them." He smiled. "I figured as much. At least I was hoping that's why you weren't writing back." He cleared his throat. He had feared the worst briefly. "Too bad we didn't have these back then, huh?" He indicated his phone. |