Copyright 1999, Lyta. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be re-posted in part or in full without written permission from me.

Disclaimer: Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict is copyright 1998, Tribune Entertainment Co. Its characters are used without permission, no infringement is intended.

Rating: PG

Title: Shaquarava and Ruby Slippers

Author:  Lyta

Lyta_1028@yahoo.com

 

Summary: A fanfic writer at least meets her favorite character when an accident strands him in the real world.

 

“Shaquarava and Ruby Slippers"

 

     Liam Kincaid tried to sit up, but he couldn't, the room was quiet except for the inexplicable sound of someone nearby typing henpeck style. He was strapped down to the implantation table with the thin needle inching its way toward his neck. He watched it approach for several long seconds before it froze. Everything stopped: the lights on the medical instruments, the typing, and the hum of the machinery. Liam managed to wiggle free after a while and exited the room only to find a young woman in her early twenties reading aloud from a computer screen.

 

    "Normally that was something he would not have minded, indeed he desired to return to the Kimeran ship he had discovered last month, but the current situation called for strict adherence to the rules and protocols. Especially after Lili...disappeared." Then the young woman paused to take a sip of Mountain Dew from aluminum can. "No make that vanished. Especially after Lili...vanished."

 

    Liam was about to question her, when the whole scene blurred and changed to a college dorm room, and a rather cluttered one at that. Star Wars action figures, both loose and carded competed for space with textbooks on the shelves, on the unmade bed a blue backpack had partially spilled out its contents. VCR tapes with scribbled titles like Farscape, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Babylon 5, Earth Final Conflict, The X-Files and others lay around rather than in the tape storage unit.

 

    "Hey Jen, isn't he a little old for you?" Another woman said as she breezed into the room to dump two books off and exchange them for another. Jenny looked at her roommate dumbfounded, before Liam tried to see what she was typing and stepped on a piece of paper. The crackling sound made her turn in his direction, a look of shock written all over her features.

 

***

 

    "This isn't happening. This isn't happening. This isn't happening." Jenny said, still sitting with a shocked expression on her face in the cheap wooden desk chair that came with the room. Just when Liam was wondering if that was all she could say, she sat up and kissed him on the lips.

 

    "Okay, so you are real." Jenny said.

 

    Now it was Liam's turn to be shocked, but he did have to admit she kissed better than Abby.

 

    "Why'd you do that?" Liam finally asked.

 

    "Kissed you?" She asked. Then noting the way he peered at her computer screen, she led him across the small space that separated her desk from her TV stand (also known as the refrigerator). The VCR rested atop a cardboard chest of drawers and next to that was a video tape storage unit that had tapes stacked next to it as well as in it. Jenny rummaged around until she found a tape with Earth: Final Conflict written in a haphazard handwriting on the side.

 

    "Watch this." Jenny advised, slipping the tape into the player. Abruptly he saw Lili and Augur talking for a few seconds before the scene switched to the Strandhill stone circle...and him with his palms aglow. A quick glance at his companion, who was now trying to get a good look at his palms without being obvious and failing miserably, revealed that she did not seem surprised.

 

    "What is this?" Liam asked.

 

    "Well, you are a character on a TV show called Earth: Final Conflict. I am a fan of the show who writes stories about the show, fanfiction, for fun."

 

    "But how did I get here?"

 

    Jenny looked irritated. "Am I supposed to pull the answer out of my lucky baseball cap? I never could do magic right."

 

    "I take it that you are as confused as I am?"

 

    "Smart boy." Jenny looked at the tape, then abruptly turned it off.

 

    "Why'd you turn it off?" Liam demanded.

 

    "The next episode..." Jenny began

 

    "What about the next episode?"

 

    "Is 'Redemption'. You really don't want to watch that one."

 

    Liam still looked baffled. "Can I borrow your global?"

 

    Jenny burst out laughing, which confused Liam until she gestured to the newspaper lying on top of the microwave. Liam picked it up, The Emporia Gazette, weekend edition.

 

    "Weekend edition? This must be a really small town." Liam muttered. Then he heard the date. Three times.

 

    "1999!"

 

    "Hey Liam, while you're here can I introduce you to my grandmother. Just act like you're my boyfriend so my family will get off my case for a while. Grampa seems to think I'm supposed to be getting my Mrs. instead of my bachelor's degree."

 

    Liam sat down in the desk chair and stared at the paper again.

 

    "Liam...Earth to Liam..."

 

   "This is so weird." He finally muttered.

 

    "Like I said Twilight Zone."

 

    Then Liam brightened. "How many Earth: Final Conflict episodes do you have on tape?"

 

    Jenny considered this. "21. I have the second season, except for ‘Dimensions', why?"

 

    "Can I watch them?"

 

    "Sure." Jenny said and found the tape with "First of Its Kind" on it.

 

***

 

    "Uh, Jenny, explain to me again why guys are not allowed to stay as overnight guests but why I'm still here?" Liam said as they took a break from their marathon EFC viewing. They were up to "Heroes and Heartbreaks" now.

 

    "Guys can be visitors, but not overnight ones. They can stay all night, though, on weekends, but they just can't technically sleep here."

 

    "That’s weird."

 

    Jenny shrugged. "The university just doesn't want to be seen as condoning...certain behavior."

 

    Liam's ears perked up. "What kind of behavior."

 

    "Sex."

 

    “Oh."

 

***

 

    "You know," Liam commented as the promo for 'First of Its Kind' aired following 'Crossfire', "I like that version of Thompson's speech much more than the take I saw."

 

    "Well, you know what they say about TV not being representative of real life."

 

    "Now, what about that fanfic you promised to show me?"

 

    Jenny went to turn on her computer, logged on to the Philosophy Sphere and let Liam read some stories. Occasionally, she leaned over his shoulder.

 

    "Where is the next part of this story?" Liam asked. Jenny groaned when she noticed he was pointing to her story.

 

    "Its about half finished and saved on that disk over there."

 

    "The one with the R2-D2 sticker on it?"

 

    "Yup."

 

***

 

    When she came back from the ladies room, Jenny was surprised to see a hurt expression on Liam's face.

 

    "Let me guess..." Jenny began. Then she saw the screen and recognized some of the postings. Seeing Liam's grip on the mouse slacken, she immediately went for it and severed his connection to the Internet.

 

    "Hey!"

 

    "Sorry, Liam but there are some things you shouldn't see."

 

    "Like 'Redemption'?"

 

    "Exactly." Jenny said. "Oh and don't try and log on again, you don't know the password."

Liam grabbed a pillow off the bed and threw it at her. She threw it back at him, hitting him on the side of the head as the small space between the bed and the desk left Liam little maneuvering room.

 

    "Wish I had some of those water balloons from last week here right now," Jenny said.

 

    "Sounds like fun." Liam said thinking of a nice water balloon fight.

 

    "There is a Wally World nearby and I have a car."

 

***

 

    It turned out Liam had never actually been inside a Wal-Mart. He really had never done much shopping and it was all Jenny could do to keep him from playing racecar driver with the shopping cart. The last thing she needed was to be booted out of the main store she went to.

 

    They got more soda and popcorn, then a bunch of balloons. After that they went to the toy section where Liam tried to convince Jenny to purchase a water pistol.

 

    "Liam, honey, I can afford two dollars worth of balloons, but not a twenty five dollar water gun. That’s the price of a couple of weeks worth of groceries!"

 

***

 

    Liam had never played water balloon wars, and quickly found himself getting pelted mercilessly. He stood there dripping wet while Jenny had only been hit once, on the leg. Finally he decided to ambush her and dumped his entire bucket full of balloons over her head.

Jenny shrieked in outrage, laughed and vowed vengeance simultaneously.

 

    Liam suddenly noticed that her wet clothes were clinging to her body in ways that showed Jenny had a very nice figure. He also liked the way her dark blue eyes sparked when she laughed. Then Liam saw that Jenny noticed that he was staring at her and started blushing as Jenny chuckled.

 

    She squeezed some of the water out her clothes, and then they simultaneously realized that Liam had no other clothes than what he was wearing.

 

***

 

    Liam sat on Jenny's bed wearing her strawberry pink bathrobe while his clothes were drying in the machine downstairs. Unfortunately, for Liam, this was a three-day weekend and few folks remained in the dorm. Of those who remained, none were of Liam's height or size.

 

    " You ca have the robe if you want, I don’t care much for pink, but you know, I must confess from the bottom of my heart that pink is your color. " Jenny teased.

 

    Liam blushed again, what was it about Jenny that was making him blush like crazy? "If you hate pink so much, why is your robe that color?"

 

    "Christmas gift. My favorite blue robe got accidentally left behind at home and I won't be able to get it until semester break."

 

    "Oh."

 

    "I'm going to check on your clothes. Remember, you owe me $.50 for the dryer now."

 

    "You can add it to my tab."

 

    While Liam headed off to the little boy's room on the other side of the dorm complex, Jenny

decided to go on-line and visit the Philosophy sphere.

 

    Her bookmark did not work.

 

    Figuring it as being a temporary quirk she tried another site. By the time Liam had returned, she had noticed a disturbing phenomenon: EFC sites no longer existed.

 

    "This is not good. We’ve got to find a way to get you back before this becomes permanent. See," Jenny exclaimed pointing to her TV guide "Earth: Final Conflict has been replaced by a second hour of Ally McBeal!"

 

    "Is that a bad thing?" Liam asked.

 

    "Well...yes. I think I know a way to send you home," Jenny said with a sad smile. She did not really want to see Liam go but feared he might disappear as well.

 

***

 

    While Liam slept in her roommate's bed, Jenny slipped off to the campus computer lab. She paused in the doorway of her room, keys and student ID in hand to gaze wistfully at the sleeping Liam.

 

    "Goodbye." She whispered as she carefully closed the door trying to make as little noise as possible.

 

    She grabbed one of the computers in the back, knowing that if she did this in the dorm Liam could very well awaken at the sound of her typing.

 

    She typed:

 

    " The hallucinogenic drug Bliss coursed through his system, making fantasy and reality blur and twist into a tangled spider's web of sensation. Everything went black for what seemed a single second until he came to on the floor of his apartment. Zo'or's scheme had failed as the Synod leader did not know the true nature of his intended victim. Somehow his immune system had neutralized the toxin and Liam got himself up off the floor and went to bed where he slept peacefully."

 

    Jenny saved the story, then went on-line. The Philosophy Sphere existed again.

 

    Finally she returned to her room, the only evidence of Liam's presence was his black leather jacket draped over her desk chair and an envelope containing recently developed pictures open on her dresser. Feeling lonely and chilled, Jenny put it on. It was much too big for her, but she did not care.

 

***

 

    Liam woke up, he had the strangest dream: that he was in a college dorm room with a young woman who knew all of his secrets and even wrote about them. Now somehow he was back in his own universe...

 

    No, Liam thought, it was just a strange dream. Perhaps it was caused by a bit of bliss remaining in his system.

 

    As he prepared to go to work, Liam realized that his jacket was missing and that there was something in his pocket. He pulled it out a photo of Jenny. He stopped on his way to work to buy a small picture frame and set it on his desk.