This is a low power fic I've begun for two reasons: The first is to help blow through the frustrations of my current family situation, the second, to have something to work on when my main project is waiting for the next creative wave to push it further along the development process. I'm HOPING, that since this is a grouping of more mainstream ideals and characters that the response will be a bit higher than with my earlier work.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, ideas, or concepts borrowed for the purposes of this story. I just wish to create stories to tell to all who would listen.
--------
Chapter 1 - Always Look Both Ways Before Picking Up Guests
--------
It was cold that night as I was taking the freeway home from my friend’s apartment, leaving me alone with my inner voice and the music from my car’s speakers. Honestly though, I wish I had someone else in the car with me. Cause if someone was it would’ve been simple to keep all the thoughts I didn’t want to think about out of sight.
My Dad has cancer. The irony of that statement being the fact we’d have never known until it killed him since it hadn’t caused him any pain at all the entire time. Two months ago, it looked like he could actually beat this thing, despite all the naysaying the doctors had said up to that point. Then it hit his lungs. As it is now, they say he’s got six months. Six months… of him hooked up to that damn, stupid respirator instead of actually going out of the house and living and… and!
The gravel of the highway shoulder suddenly pulled me out of my growing frustrations as I quickly maneuvered my car back into the left-hand lane. Thankfully, that sleet-storm we’d had a few days ago had already melted from the streets and bridges, which meant I only got a wakeup call instead of a slip-and-slide down the highway strip. Man, I wish someone was here with me in the car. Might keep me from crashing, at least.
Of course, I couldn’t think about my situation with my father and not consider the other half of my born family. Mom had been run ragged over the last few days, barely getting any sleep with Dad’s up and down behavior in the house. Today had been the worst thus far, she had gotten the bill from the hospital for a month’s stay there and done a quick tally of things… they weren’t promising. She just broke down during the late afternoon, as did I. We actually considered-
I felt the rough gravel of the left shoulder again, making me quickly angle myself to the middle-lane while my frustrations quickly boiled over. “GAH! Fuckitall anyway! I wish I had someone to talk to right now! At least then, I might be able to have some peace of mind!!”
Well, if you insist.
I was suddenly blinded by this amazing flash from the other three seats inside the cabin, an instant before three people appeared in the car with me. But I was rather occupied by trying to get the vehicle to a complete and intact stop after the girl now in the front passenger seat looked forward and screamed. I turned and realized why - I’m a few moments from hitting the off-ramp guardrail!!
I pressed the brakes for a bit of lead time before jerking the wheel to the right, just missing the polished aluminum of the barrier. I let the weight of the car and the uphill slope of the off-ramp decelerate us further before finding the nearest entrance into a nearby parking lot, turning inside, and finding a space to come to a sudden and complete stop. I shifted into park before letting my head slump onto the steering wheel. My breathing was hard as I waited for the adrenalin to wear off, and it sounded like everyone else was in a similar state. After a moment to calm down, I switched on the overhead lights, and looked in the direction of my new ‘passengers’ to see who had been dropped in my lap.
Even if I could find the right words to describe the awe that came next, I still don’t think you’d believe me.
In the front passenger seat was the girl who saved my fender earlier. She was Japanese, as far as I could tell, with chocolate brown eyes and long, dark brown hair split off into a set of looped braids that ended in a pair of tails. She looked to be dressed for an academy, with a teal blue jacket and skirt combo over a white blouse with a red bow at the collar. But the real clincher was what was on the middle finger of her left hand. A gold ring with a horned demon’s face and two hook clasps that fit around the back of the hand, securing its place there on her finger.
“Devil Hunter… Yohko Mano…” I said softly, though it was still apparently loud enough for the young lady to notice as her eyes widened in surprise.
“Th-that’s my name! Wh-where- how- what’s going on here?!” I waved my hands in her direction to get her to calm down, though honestly I wouldn’t mind having a few of those questions answered myself.
“Good questions. Maybe if we put our heads together, we can find some answers?” I turned in the new voice’s direction and took in the appearance of my second passenger. Long dark brown hair held in a low ponytail, bright blue eyes, and two rows of dark spots on her pale skin that wound their way down her head and neck till they disappeared behind a light blue blouse collar. Over that was a black jumpsuit that was dark grey at the neck and shoulders, and a small pin shaped like an upturned silver arrow over two gold horizontal bars on the left side of her heart.
I smiled at my second passenger. “Once my head stops spinning, Dax, I’ll explain what I can. But I’m afraid that without any Federation tech hoodoo to help me, any explanations I have won’t be that revealing. Oh! By the way, congratulations on making First Contact with Earth.”
Jadzia’s eyes filled with shock as well before she began speaking again. “Earth?! Where am I? What year is this?”
“Where you are is Dallas, Texas, when is December 9th, 2013.”
The Trill quickly relaxed after that news. “Thank goodness, that should mean anything I do won’t really have an effect on the timeline. Now I just have to figure out how I got here, that might help me figure out a way back t-” She suddenly became white as a ghost as something came to her. “The temple!! Dukat’s still there, and Benjamin doesn’t know!”
I raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Temple? Wha-ohhhh scrap.”
The lieutenant commander looked at me with a rather worried gaze before gesturing me to continue speaking. “Commander, if you just came from the Temple - as in the Bajoran Temple on DS9 - and Dukat’s there also, who or whatever brought you here just saved your life. He’dve killed you with the energy of that pah-wraith inside him, then done something to the Orb that would force the wormhole shut for a time.” As I spoke, a part of me felt it best to help lessen the blow I was giving her. “But there is good news. Dax does get successfully passed to another host, and Sisko does manage to re-open the wormhole soon after. Not the best solution, but at least there is one.”
A tear ran down her cheek before she met my eyes again with her own. “Given the options, I suppose that’s all I can hope for, really. Was Worf able to live with… without me?”
I crossed my arms in front of me and thought back along my memories of watching Deep Space Nine. After another moment I spoke up again. “He managed to, eventually. ‘Course he had to make sure you got into Stovokor first by blowing up a Dominion orbital shipyard with only one Klingon cruiser.” I started chuckling. “His ship forced the nearby sun to eject a coronal mass emission right at the yard, vaporizing it instantly. Awesome fireworks, really.”
As the Starfleet officer started to smile at the thought of her husband doing something that crazy just for her, Yohko just glanced back and forth between the two of us, utterly perplexed. “Ok, what in the hell are you two talking about? Temples? Dukat? Woof?!”
I couldn’t stop myself. Within seconds my head was thumping the steering wheel as I howled in laughter over the teenager’s misinterpretation over the prior discussion. Dax was giggling herself over the whole thing, probably because she would know just how much that would’ve irritated the gruff, sober Klingon. “It… hehe… It’s Worf, Miss Mano, not Woof. And this is Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax, Science Officer for the Federation-run space station Deep Space Nine. The station itself is located at the mouth of a kind of tunnel in space called a wormhole, which allows anyone from this part of our galaxy to another that’s several thousand light-years away. There’s more to it than that, but suffice it to say that she comes from a possible future of ours. I’ll save the whole explanation for later.”
Dax nodded before looking to her left, which of course made me look where she was looking. Once I had managed to angle my vision that way, I took in the look of the last new arrival to my world. It was a man this time, an elderly one from the color of his gray hair and goatee as well as the lack of hair atop his head. He had thick, gray sideburns and a section of his remaining hair was locked into a simple topknot. A set of brown shoulder-pads and matching breastplate covered his upper torso, while a simple gray robe took care of the rest. He had a serious expression on his face, as if he was watching for whatever might come his way.
Off hand, I couldn’t really place him, but he was familiar to me. “So how come you haven’t introduced yourself, sir? As it stands, the girls and I are doing all the talking.”
It was at that point that the elderly man looked at me. I emphasize it like that since he did much more than just point his eyes in my direction as I did earlier, it honestly felt like he was peering deeper in a way that’s hard to describe. But soon enough, a smile came to his face, and he finally started speaking. “I am Iroh, retired General of the Fire Nation. I apologize for my cautious actions, but I have found that it is best to stay quiet when you are in unfamiliar surroundings. Often it will help you avoid attracting the wrong sort of attention."
******
Thought I'd give the introductions of everyone before posting this intro snip. Please give any opinions if you can. Later!