Part Twelve: Truth and Consequences
Ryan's eyes widened. They knew...but how could they, when
he'd played the part so
well? His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
"Answer him!" Kate almost shouted, moving in closer and
pulling up on the bat, as if to
send his skull into center field.
"All right!" he exclaimed, cringing and trying to cover
his head. "I'm not really Lewis --
my name's Ryan Stiles and I was a totally innocent bystander
minding my own business
until Lewis zapped me into this crazy parallel universe!"
There was silence for a moment. Ryan cautiously peeked out,
very aware of the
weapon in Kate's hands that was still uncomfortably close to his
head.
"It was that damn machine he was tinkering with, wasn't
it," Drew proclaimed in disgust.
"I think so," he ventured.
The others appeared to be mulling this over. Ryan lowered
his arms slowly, feeling a
little safer, but ready to protect himself again if need be.
Drew looked down at him. "What was your name
again?"
"Ryan. Ryan Stiles," he answered, realizing it
was time for the truth. Drew stepped
back, giving him room to stand. Kate had lowered the
baseball bat, but she continued
to hold it in front of her while Ryan took a seat on one of the
living room chairs. The
others sat down as well, never taking their eyes off him.
"So if you're here, where's Lewis?" said Oswald
suspiciously.
Ryan could see the concern in his eyes and felt a sudden twinge
of guilt. "I suppose
he's where I was, back in the world I come from."
"You think you switched places with him?" asked Drew.
"I guess so. One minute I was at the studio, the next
I was in your living room, wearing
Lewis's clothes. I'm assuming he turned up back in my
universe. It would make sense...
but then again, nothing about this makes sense," he sighed.
Drew frowned. "So what you're saying is, you suddenly
find yourself here, and the best
thing you can come up with is that you should pretend to be
someone else, our friend,
never mind that our friend is really off God-knows-where and
you'll be lying to us the
whole time?"
"I'm sorry," he protested. "But I didn't
know what else to do."
"You could have told us who you were right from the
beginning."
"Oh yeah," Ryan snorted. "Like you would've
believed me if I said 'oh by the way,
I'm not really Lewis, even though I look and sound exactly like
him'. You would
have taken me to the psycho ward, not the emergency room."
The corner of Drew's mouth turned up. "You're probably
right," he admitted. He
looked at him kind of cockeyed. "You're really not
Lewis?"
"I'm really not."
"So what exactly happened to you?" he asked, leaning
forward a little. "Were you just
suddenly here, or was there some kind of warning first?"
Ryan's brow furrowed as he thought back to the incident.
"Well, the overhead lights
started flickering, then they got really bright. There was
a weird noise and a flash, and
the next thing I knew, I was here."
"The same thing happened with us," said Kate.
"Lewis was fiddling with that machine,
and then the power started going on and off, and the lights here
were flickering too.
There was a bright flash, just like you said..."
"...and that's when I found myself here...in Lewis's
clothes. That's why I'm guessing that
we switched places, and he's back in my world now."
"So you think Lewis is safe?" This was from
Oswald.
"Yeah, he should be -- I'm sure my friends will take good
care of him, once they're over
the shock of him being him and not me." He felt his
tension level decreasing. It had been
such a burden, trying to pretend he was someone he wasn't; and he
was almost relieved
that he'd had to come clean. "So how did you guys know
I wasn't Lewis?"
Drew shrugged. "Kate and I didn't, not at first.
But Oswald did."
"After a while," he added.
Ryan smiled ruefully. "I guess when you live with
someone, you can't hide much from them."
"It wasn't anything obvious, not really. At least in
the beginning," said Oswald. "But it was
so weird the way Speedy acted around you -- like you were a total
stranger. And when
you didn't mind that you weren't allowed to have any alcohol for
24 hours...I knew
something was different about you."
"It was just a bunch of little things," remarked
Kate. "Oswald kept noticing things about you
that were a little off, things that you did that Lewis
didn't. Like smoking," she nodded her
head towards him. "He could smell it on you."
Ryan looked a little surprised. "I thought I was being
careful."
"And the way you reacted when you saw Eugene Anderson,"
said Drew. "Even I thought that
was weird. Oswald had told us that he thought something was
up and that you weren't really
Lewis, but I didn't believe him. He brought up a few things
that made Kate suspicious too,
but I just went along with it to humor him..."
Oswald's head popped up. "Hey..."
"But then when I thought about it some more, I started
noticing things were off about you too.
I'd been putting them down to aftereffects of the electric shock,
but Oswald wouldn't believe it.
He convinced Kate, and after a while he'd almost convinced
me. I got curious, and I decided
to check the history on my computer, see what websites you'd
visited-"
"Oh."
"Searches on a bunch of names I'd never heard of before.
Including 'Ryan Stiles'. Lewis
would've known how to cover his tracks."
"After all, he hacked into DrugCo's supercomputer and made
it illegal for fat men to vote in
Alabama," Oswald added with a smile.
"And when you saw Eugene, you ran over to him and called him
Colin -- one of the names
you did a search on. But when he didn't know you, you
looked like...I don't know..."
"Like a puppy that had just been kicked," said
Oswald. "Very sad."
"Sad?" Kate repeated. "Totally crushed is
more like it."
Drew nodded. "And you kept sneaking looks at him all
night. I was afraid you were gonna
start crying in your beer or something."
Ryan looked away, suddenly very self-conscious.
"Well...I miss him."
"But even then, Drew still didn't believe it,"
continued Kate. "Not until Oswald mentioned
something that -- if you were Lewis -- would have been
impossible."
Ryan cocked his head, curious. "What was that?"
"It was after you'd gotten out of the shower," said
Oswald. "No bruises."
Now he was confused. "Bruises? I don't
understand."
"The bruises Lewis got at a microbrewery expo. They
weren't there anymore, but they had
been on Friday morning," she said. "They were worse
than Oswald's, and his are still pretty
visible." The other man pulled up his shirt
obligingly, to reveal the nasty purplish-green
blotches down his side. "And Lewis had been
complaining that his ribs were still sore from
that day, but after you got back from the hospital, you acted
like they didn't hurt at all. And
the doctor never mentioned them. You'd think he would have
been curious about a mark
the size and shape of a bear paw in the middle of your
chest."
"Actually it was a little off to one side," said
Oswald. "But you get the idea."
Ryan looked at them quizzically. He knew there was a script
in the works for something at
a beer expo, but this? "A bear paw?" he repeated.
"Here's a hint...never ever get a bear drunk," Oswald
pronounced solemnly. Kate nodded
in agreement.
"I'll have to remember that," murmured Ryan. He
glanced over at Drew, who had been
silent for a while, as if he'd been taking all the new
information in. But Ryan could tell by
his expression -- so much like the Drew from his world -- that
something was troubling him.
"Drew?" he prompted.
The other man peered at him intently through the thick lenses of
his glasses. "If you're not
really Lewis, but someone named Ryan Stiles from a parallel
dimension...then how did you
know me?" Drew asked slowly. "When we were on the
way to the hospital, you said
something about 'the other Drew'. And once we got
there...you said your name was Lewis
Kiniski. I know we called you Lewis before then, but none
of us mentioned your last name.
And you also knew that Lewis lived with Oswald. Why is
that?"
The look on Drew's face made it seem like he didn't really want
to know the answer to his
question, but that he had to ask anyway. Ryan looked away
for a second, then back at Drew.
He'd already resolved that he was going to be completely honest
with these people; still, this
wouldn't be easy for them to accept. But there was no going
back now. "Well, it's kind of
hard to explain," he began. "I'm not Lewis, but
I..." He didn't know how to say it in a way
that would make sense -- this whole situation was confusing
enough, and this would only
make it worse. "I play him."
Drew stared at him, as if to make sure he'd heard right.
"What do you mean, you play him?"
"I told you it was hard to explain..." he replied
apologetically. "But where I'm from, there's
another Drew Carey. He's a friend of mine; that's how I
knew who you were." He gave them
a few seconds to absorb this. "The Drew in my universe
is an actor and a comedian. I am
too, and...I guess it's this parallel dimension thing...I play
Lewis Kiniski, on a TV show."
Drew looked at him like he'd just suggested that up was down and
the sky was green.
"What show?"
Ryan shifted uncomfortably. "The Drew Carey
Show." At their incredulous looks, he
continued. "It's about you, and your job, and your
friends Lewis and Oswald and Kate..."
To Ryan's surprise, Drew burst out laughing. "So what
you're trying to tell me is that my
crummy life is the basis for a TV show in another
dimension?" He shook his head in
disbelief. "Man, if my life's the best thing they have to
put on TV, your universe must be
really hard up for ideas."
"We've been on since 1995," Ryan asserted.
"But how is that possible?" Drew asked, sounding a
little desperate.
"Hey, remember that time we were watching that show on the
Sci Fi network, with that
woman who said she could channel spirits from the astral
plane? Maybe that's how...bits of
your life pop up into the mind of the parallel universe Drew, and
give him ideas about what
to put in his show," Oswald offered.
"That actually makes sense -- you're the only one of us who
exists in both universes," said
Ryan.
"Lewis always said that instances of dimensional overlap
could lead to things like remote
viewing, clairvoyance, and all that," replied Oswald
knowingly.
"Lewis also always said that the Bermuda Triangle was
actually a trapezoid, and that time
travelers from the future use crop circles as staging areas for
their training missions," snorted
Drew.
"Maybe they do," Oswald countered, without missing a
beat.
Drew turned to Ryan and shook his head. "And someone
based a TV show on all this," he
muttered. "So when you said you were at the studio,
were you filming the show?"
"No...the Drew in my universe also hosts an improv show,
called Whose Line Is It Anyway.
We're both on it. We were about to wrap up for the night
when I got zapped into your
dimension."
"Oh." Now Drew looked rather pleased with
himself. Maybe it was because his
extradimensional alter-ego wasn't a middle manager in a
department store. "So those other
people you were talking about when you first came through-"
"Colin, Greg, and Wayne?"
"Yeah -- Lewis is there with them?"
"Them, and the other Drew."
Drew smiled knowingly. "Colin's the one who looks like
Eugene, isn't he."
Ryan felt his cheeks warm a bit. "Yes."
There was a brief pause, while the others exchanged significant
looks. // Jeez, is it that
obvious? // he thought, a little self-consciously.
"So that's why you were so eager to get back here Friday
night. You were going to try to
use the machine again, to undo what Lewis did and go back before
we realized you weren't
really you," said Kate with a mischievous smile.
He nodded. "Didn't work out quite the way I'd planned,
though."
"No wonder you were so freaked out when you saw it in
pieces...and so happy when
Oswald told you there were more of them," grinned Drew.
"I figured if I could just make it through the weekend, I
could go to DrugCo on Monday
morning and get another one," he replied.
Kate, Drew, and Oswald all looked at each other pointedly.
"Oh, you don't have to wait
until tomorrow morning," said Kate.
"What do you mean?" Ryan asked.
"The answer's simple. Go tonight."
"Under cover of darkness," Oswald enthused.
"That way, nobody will see us when we
break in."
Drew nodded. "When we break in, find you another
transporter, and get you and Lewis
back where you both belong."
Part Thirteen: Mission Improbable
"Wait," Ryan stuttered. "We? You mean
you're going to help me?"
Kate looked at him like he was an idiot. "Of course we
are," she replied. "Now that
we know what you were planning to do."
"The three of us have all been there before; you
haven't," said Drew. Then he snorted.
"I'm surprised you didn't put that in the TV
show. What an ordeal."
"If you're talking about the time we went there to get
Speedy back, we did," answered
Ryan, still a little surprised. "When he went to
DrugCo for clinical trials for a new eye
medicine. It was one of our most popular episodes."
Drew, Kate, and Oswald -- presumably remembering the events of
that night -- all
exchanged smiles; but Ryan was still concerned about a few
things. "Have you given any
thought as to how we're going to get in? All the doors will
be locked, and you've got to
figure they have some pretty heavy security."
Drew gazed at him evenly. "Well, the door locks at
DrugCo are electronic -- they're
fully computerized. They'll open automatically for anyone
who works there so long as
the visual scans match up."
"You look exactly like Lewis, right? So the eye scan
thing should work for you," Kate
said.
Ryan looked at them dubiously. "But doesn't the scan
cause a good amount of pain? In
that episode, I had to scream when it was being done. The
script said so."
"Oh. Well. I think Lewis was just pretending,
right guys?" said Kate. The others nodded
enthusiastically.
Ryan was still dubious.
"Oh, c'mon, Ryan," Drew cajoled. "Do you
think Lewis really has a pain chip in his head
too? He just says things like that to be funny."
"I don't know," said Oswald thoughtfully.
"We saw some pretty strange things when we
snuck into DrugCo last time. What about the
monkopotamus?"
"And the exploding clones," Kate added.
"And the epiphany ball."
Drew shook his head long-sufferingly. "Guys, you're
just going to scare Ryan here...you
know we have to go back there tonight, and you're only getting
him more worried than he
already is." His eyes narrowed. "But I knew that
matter transporter thing was bad news the
minute I laid eyes on it. I just knew it. And I told
Lewis that, too. But would he listen? No.
He had to go and fiddle with it and make a transdimensional warp
into a parallel universe."
"Yeah, I saw that whole transdimensional warp thing coming a
mile away too," Kate
remarked dryly.
"Yeah, about that..." said Ryan, looking down at the
floor. He was still uneasy. There had
been one particular fear at the back of his mind, nagging and
gnawing away at any confidence
he managed to build up. He hadn't wanted to think about it,
but now that things were coming
down to the wire, he had to acknowledge the possibility. He
looked up again. "What if I
can't figure out how to make the machine switch us back?
What if I can't duplicate what
Lewis did?"
"Is that what's bothering you?" asked Oswald.
"No problem. Now that you have us, you
don't have to worry about that. I watched Lewis the whole
time he was working on it. I'll
tell you exactly what to do."
"Now I'm worried," Drew commented. At
Ryan's look of apprehension, he patted his
shoulder. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said
that. We all were watching him; we'll talk you
through it. Lewis practically dictated what he was doing anyway,
at least the things that went
wrong."
"Yeah," said Kate. "And when things started
getting weird, he knew he was on to something.
That's why he made me do this." She produced a small notepad
from her purse and grinned.
"A written record, so he would be able to tell DrugCo how he
fixed their machine. And get
his promotion." She handed it to Ryan, who accepted it
eagerly.
"So he's not as dumb as he looks," Drew murmured, then
realized what he was saying. He
smiled sheepishly at Ryan. "Sorry, I didn't mean it
that way-"
Ryan grinned back -- he was so relieved, nothing was going to
bother him. "No offense
taken. I'd be the first one to tell you that I'm not
exactly the smartest or the smartest-looking
man in the world. Any world."
Drew and Kate both chuckled. "I can't believe you were
going to try to do this on your own.
Aren't you glad we found you out, and now you have all this
help?" she asked.
"I am very, very, very thankful that all of you were able to
figure out I wasn't who I was
pretending to be," said Ryan contritely. "And I
am infinitely grateful for your assistance
and advice."
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
Drew looked at the others. "I wonder who that could
be?"
Oswald shrugged. "Answer it."
He did so, and was greeted by his brother Steve, along with his
wife Mimi.
"Hey guys, hey bro," said Steve amiably. "We
were just passing by on our way to pick out
more baby clothes, and I was wondering if I could borrow your
toolbox. I was going to try
my hand at making a few things for the baby's room, but then I
realized I didn't have anything
to make them with."
"Sure -- my tools are your tools. Except one," he
replied, looking Mimi up and down.
"That tool stays far away from any box of
yours."
"Shut up, pig -- I'm in a delicate condition right now, and
I don't want to contaminate my
intra-uterine environment with any anger-related hormones...no
matter how much I'd enjoy
cutting your pasty white butt down to size."
Steve, by now very used to this sort of exchange between his wife
and his brother, just
shook his head and sighed. "In the garage?" he
asked.
"Below the second shelf on the left," Drew replied
casually.
Steve nodded. "Back in a minute, sweetie," he
said, blowing his wife a kiss. She giggled
and blew one back.
"I think I'm gonna be sick," Drew observed, clutching
at his stomach in mock pain.
Mimi threw him a dirty look, then glanced around the living room
at the others. When she
got to Ryan, she stopped.
He was staring at her with an expression of both astonishment and
amusement.
She eyed him distastefully. "What're you
looking at, Ichabod?"
Ryan couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing.
This appeared to annoy Mimi even more. "Some of your
stupidity must be rubbing off
on him," she said to Drew. Then she turned her
attention back to Ryan, who was still a
bit incapacitated. "Something's different about you,"
she pronounced.
Ryan immediately stopped laughing. God knows what might
happen if Mimi learned the
truth about him. "What do you mean?" he asked in
alarm.
She looked at him disgustedly, but she also seemed curious.
"I don't know...something's
off," she replied, coming closer to get a better look.
Ryan scrunched down in his chair,
as if to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible.
Drew stepped in front of her. "You know, you're right,
Mimi. Something is different
about Lewis."
"And what's that?" she replied skeptically.
"Well you see, Mimi, this isn't really Lewis at all,"
he replied in a conspiratorial way.
"This is actually a visitor from a parallel dimension, an
actor, who plays the part of
Lewis Kiniski on the hit TV series 'The Drew Carey Show'."
Now Mimi's look of disgust was directed at Drew. "In
your dreams," she snorted. "I
was just trying to see if Beanpole over there got a new
haircut."
At that point, Steve walked back into the living room with the
toolbox. "Thanks, bro.
I owe you one."
"Anytime," Drew said, then waved goodbye as the
expectant couple left. He turned to
Ryan. "Sorry you had to be on the receiving end of
that," he said apologetically. "Running
into Mimi -- what a way to ruin your trip to a perfectly nice
alternate universe."
"That's OK, Drew," he replied. "It was
funny...besides, you and Mimi acting like that is
one of the best parts of the show." He paused.
"And incidentally, the actress who plays
Mimi is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet."
"I'll take your word for it," he stated dourly.
Then he stood up and stretched. "And now
that they're gone, and we've gotten everyone and everything
straightened out, we can
finally do what you came here for."
"What's that?" asked Ryan.
Oswald smiled at him. "What I told you we would do
once we got here." He shrugged,
then glanced over at Drew. "Let's eat."
Part Fourteen: Breaking, Entering, and
Exiting
Ryan looked at his watch for the umpteenth time. Not yet,
he told himself, and gazed out
the windows of the truck where he and the others
waited...patiently, and not-so-patiently.
His stomach was in a knot, but he didn't know whether it was in
anticipation or dread.
When he looked at the others, they also showed varying degrees of
uneasiness, even
though they had gone through exactly how they were going to do
this at least a dozen
times.
Earlier that day, while planning their commando raid on DrugCo
(as Kate had so eloquently
described it), they had decided that the safest thing would be to
stick as closely as possible
to the way they'd done it before. After all, it worked last
time. Lewis had known the way
around their security measures, but since he wasn't there to
advise them now, they thought
it best to go on what had worked before. They'd planned out
their route and their actions
carefully that afternoon. And when that was over, they'd
talked. About the show, about
the actors, about Ryan's friends back in the real world.
Drew was rather surprised that his
alter ego had been a marine as well as a stand-up comic.
Kate had surprised all of them
when she said she was glad her counterpart had recently had a
baby -- curious, since she
herself didn't think she wanted children. Maybe this way
she could do it vicariously. And
Oswald, in addition to wanting to know more about his
counterpart, had also wanted to
know more about Lewis...based on Ryan's view of the character.
Each had wanted to
know more about the people who played them, and about how they
themselves were
portrayed on the show, but Oswald was especially interested in
Lewis. That caught Ryan's
attention, but he got the feeling that Oswald didn't want to
pursue it, at least not in front of
the others.
"It's time," said Drew finally.
The four of them got out of the truck and walked casually to the
area where they'd entered
the building before. The door that barred the way in looked
heavy, solid, and impenetrable
by any means other than a well-placed explosive charge.
As they approached, Ryan could see the currently inactive
scanner. He was nervous. He
wasn't a perfect match for Lewis; the others had shown him
that. If he was, they never
would have found out his true identity. But he was counting
on his physical resemblance to
the other man to let them in.
Ryan stepped up to the scanner, and a small panel slid open and a
series of lights above
the device came on. He tried not to fidget. A painful
laser beam to the eye was bad
enough, but a painful laser beam to the eye and then not getting
inside would be even
worse. He tried not to blink as the device clicked on.
The light was warm but not painful, so there was no trouble
standing there while the
scanner did its work. It shut itself off, and a few seconds
later, the electronics
automatically unlocked the door.
Ryan grinned with relief.
"Did it hurt?" asked Oswald.
"Not at all. I guess he was just faking
it."
"Hmm. Guess I owe you five bucks after all," said
Drew, winking at Kate as they
followed Ryan and Oswald inside.
Drew rubbed his chin as he surveyed the alcove, trying to orient
himself. "Now, when
we did this before, we went...this way," he said, pointing
down one of the corridors
that branched off from the hallway where they stood.
"When we did this before, didn't we get lost?" asked
Oswald.
"That was when we were looking for Speedy and we had to
search all the rooms and
labs. This time we know where we're going."
"Just not how to get there."
"Ha ha; very funny, Oswald..."
Ryan smiled slightly, enjoying the interchange between the two as
he followed after them,
Kate at his side. This place certainly was strange.
When they'd filmed the episode Drew
had just mentioned, the sets had been meant to convey the bizarre
layout and the twisting,
turning passageways that all seemed to look alike. Now that
he was here, Ryan was
definitely glad for the help of people who had actually been here
before -- he never would
have been able to find his way through this place on his own.
The conversation between Drew and Oswald about their last visit
to DrugCo went on for
a while longer, but then had turned to a wider view of their past
-- what Ryan considered
the 'continuity' of the show. The others were still trying
to figure out how and how long
before events from this Drew's life ended up on the other Drew's
show. Ryan didn't have
an answer for this, although he was sure that -- as he'd surmised
-- it happened here first
before it was even conceived of in his world.
"So if Mimi hasn't had her baby yet..." he mused, as he
contemplated what they'd been
saying. "I was right. What's being worked on now
in my universe has already happened
to you. Somehow, the writers are picking up on things that have
already occurred here and
are using them in the show. There are things in scripts
that are still being developed but
haven't been filmed yet that have already happened to you."
"So we're in the future," laughed Oswald.
"Hey, maybe what's happening to us right now
will be made into an episode of your show later on...where you
and Lewis switch places,
and how you try to fool us into thinking you're him, and how you
get back to your own
dimension."
Ryan raised an eyebrow. That would certainly be
interesting...but probably a little too
weird, even for their show's writers. But then
again... "Maybe during sweeps week,"
he said, considering the possibilities.
"Whoa, Ryan," said Kate, interrupting his train of
thought by taking him by the arm and
steering him away from something on the other side of the
hall. "If you ever want to have
any more kids, you might want to avoid Lewis's favorite 'thinking
spot' over there..."
Ryan looked over to the glowing green panel. It was labeled
'Danger -- Radioactive' and
it was right at groin level. He flinched.
"Thanks."
"Well, if we couldn't save Lewis's fertility, the least we
can do is save yours."
"I remember this place, so we're getting closer," said
Drew, also (from a safe distance)
checking out the panel. There were several corridors
branching off from their present
location, all of which looked similar. He regarded each one
in succession. "But I can't
remember exactly which way to go from here..."
"Yeah, things were getting a little crazy around this point
last time," said Kate. She, too,
looked as if she wasn't sure which path to follow.
"Why don't you guys scout ahead?" suggested
Oswald. "That way, if you find anything,
you can come back and get us. We'll stay here so you can
find us again."
"It does sound better than us all splitting up. Come
on, Drew, let's try this way first," said
Kate. "Give us ten minutes or so; then we'll come
back. If it looks promising, we'll all go
that way, but if it doesn't, we'll try the next one."
Drew nodded. "OK. But if we're not back in ten
minutes, please, come and rescue us."
"You never know what might be wandering around in
here," Ryan agreed.
"And I was worried about us scaring *him*?" said Drew,
rolling his eyes. Then he
shook his head and followed Kate down the first corridor.
Ryan watched as Oswald went over to the beginning of the hallway
they'd taken, listening
as their voices receded in the distance. When they could no
longer be heard, Oswald
turned to him, a rather peculiar look in his eyes. It was a
combination of anticipation,
worry, and curiosity. And it was very intense.
Ryan actually had been expecting something like this. All
day, he'd had the feeling that
something was up with the other man. He'd had so many questions
earlier, mostly about
the show but more specifically about Lewis. He'd been very
interested in Ryan's take on
the character, his impressions of the man he'd played for the
past five years. Ryan was
certain there was more that he'd wanted to ask, but didn't.
Now he wondered if perhaps
Oswald wanted to ask something that he wouldn't feel comfortable
with in front of Kate
and Drew.
"I need to ask you something," he said, that intense
look never leaving his eyes.
Ryan nodded, hoping to put the other man at ease. "Go
ahead."
Oswald's expression shifted to one of unease. "I...I
was wondering," he began slowly.
Then he sighed, a little frustrated. "I mean, you know
more about Lewis than probably
anyone. Even more than me, and I live with him."
He sighed again, and at that moment
Ryan realized what this was all about. He probably should
have seen it coming. Oswald
was shifting uncomfortably as he tried to put his thoughts into
words. This made Ryan
even more determined to put him at ease; this couldn't be easy
for him. "What I'm trying
to say is..."
"You have feelings for him," said Ryan gently, in a way
that wouldn't give Oswald the
stigma of actually saying it out loud. He remembered back to when
he'd first admitted to
himself what his feelings for Colin really were...it had been
difficult, the first time he'd
acknowledged that how he felt went somewhere beyond friendship --
crossing the line
into something deeper, something much more.
Oswald nodded silently and looked away, blushing again.
Ryan considered his next words carefully. "I think
Lewis might feel the same way about
you, too."
Oswald's head came up. "Do you really think so?"
he asked softly.
"It's always been hinted at...that there's something between
you two that will eventually
come out," said Ryan. He'd sometimes wondered if they
might do this when the series
eventually ended -- he doubted that ABC would let them do it any
earlier. Subtext, on
the other hand, was fine with them as long as it was funny.
"You and Lewis have known
each other for so long, and you've been with each other as
friends for longer than most
people are married...there must be something right going on
there." He paused. "I don't
know if Lewis has ever consciously considered it before,
though. Take it slow. It may
take him a while to get used to the idea, and to his own
feelings."
Oswald smiled warmly at him -- the same sort of smile he usually
reserved for Lewis.
"So after he gets used to it, do you think Lewis would like
to do with me what you do
with Colin?" he asked playfully.
Ryan couldn't help but smile back. "Now that
would be good for sweeps week," he
declared, as the sounds of approaching footsteps could be heard
from the corridor that
Drew and Kate had taken. He held a finger to his lips, in
anticipation of what he knew
the other man was about to ask. "Don't worry, I won't
say a word."
The warm look was still there. "Thanks...buddy."
"We found it!" came Kate's enthusiastic yelp as she
emerged from the corridor. "First
try, too -- Research and Development, right this way.
Drew's waiting there for us."
After exchanging excited looks, Ryan and Oswald hurried after
Kate.
"It's up here," she called from a little ahead of
them. She was as excited as they were
as she led them through the twisting corridors to finally reach
the target of their search.
Drew was standing at the door waving. "Come on
in. Lewis was right; there are a
bunch of them inside."
Ryan eagerly followed Drew and Kate into the lab, back to a
worktable on which sat
a number of what looked like VCR's or video game consoles.
Several of them were
disassembled, their inner components exposed, but two appeared to
be complete
and intact.
"God," he said. "I can't believe I'm finally
here."
Kate, who had taken her notepad back from Ryan earlier, now
opened it again to
the description of what Lewis had done to cause the switch
between him and his
extradimensional counterpart. "Are you ready?"
she asked.
Ryan sat down at the table and gingerly reached out a hand to one
of the transporters.
"It's not going to bite you, Ryan," said Drew, sitting
down across the table from him...
although he was far enough away that there was no chance of him
touching the machine
himself. He pushed a small collection of tools towards
Ryan. "It wasn't until Lewis
started messing with it that it got dangerous."
"That's not exactly comforting," he replied dourly,
examining the transporter up close.
There was a catch on the side that sprung open when he tapped it,
revealing the inner
tangle of circuits, wires, and computer chips. "All
right. What do I do?"
Kate read from her notes. "Well, first you open the
casing...oh, you've already done
that...OK, now you engage the external power supply."
"That means plug it in," said Drew in explanation.
He did so, and a low humming sound started. Ryan
gulped. "What next?"
"Now remove the chip that's next to the silver thing
sticking up near the middle."
Ryan stared down at the machine's insides. "There are
chips on both sides of the
silver thing."
"The chip that's closer to the center of the box, not the
one that's nearer to the edge,"
said Oswald.
"Are you sure?" asked Ryan nervously.
"Sure I'm sure."
Ryan slid one of the tiny tools under the chip, separating it
from the other components,
and then lifted it out as if it might explode. When it
didn't, Oswald gazed at the others
smugly. "Toldja I was watching," he said triumphantly.
Ryan breathed a sigh of relief, then continued following their
instructions. In a few
places, there was some doubt over what Kate had written -- and
over what Lewis had
dictated -- but between the three of them, they were able to
direct Ryan through the
process of taking apart and rearranging the components of the
machine as Lewis had.
As he went further along, he noticed, the background hum of the
machine had risen in
intensity. And as he neared the end, the lights in the room
began to flicker wildly,
growing increasing bright as each new connection was made.
"I think you're doing it right," said Kate, in hushed
tones. "You're almost there. Just one
more step before...well, before what's supposed to happen
happens." She read from
her notes. "Unhook the blue and the green wires from where
they enter the sides of the
console; then reattach the blue where the green used to be and
the green where the blue
used to be." She looked up. "That should do
it."
Ryan stared down at the machine, then at his hands, suddenly
feeling a stab of
apprehension. What if it didn't work? What if he was
stuck here for the rest of his life?
Or worse, what if he'd made a wrong connection or the machine
malfunctioned, and he
ended up killing himself, Lewis, and everyone in the room?
Oswald seemed to pick up on his anxiety. "Don't
worry. It's OK to be scared," he said.
He reached out his hand to grasp Ryan's. "Everything's
going to be all right." Drew and
Kate nodded, murmuring words of encouragement as well.
"You're going to make it home."
Ryan gazed back at them evenly, but his throat was tight.
"Thank you," he said softly. "I'll
miss you, all of you...Lewis is lucky to have you as
friends. Especially you, Oswald." He
gave the other man's hand a firm squeeze, then released it.
"Everything will work out. Just
give it time." Ignoring the curious looks from Drew
and Kate, he smiled ruefully. "But...
assuming we both make it back to our own dimensions...please tell
Lewis not to do anything
like this ever again. I don't think I could take it."
The others smiled too; Drew shook his hand and Kate gave him a
kiss on the cheek. "For
luck," she said. Then they all stepped back, waiting
for the last of the instructions to be
carried out.
Ryan closed his eyes tightly, then -- as Kate had described --
crossed the final two wires.
Just like the first time, there was a loud bang and a bright
flash, and the sensation of electrical
current running through his body. Even with his eyes shut,
the flash still half-blinded him.
Gasping for breath, Ryan realized he was now lying on something
soft. He groaned.
"Oh my God," he heard a very familiar voice cry.
"He was right -- he was right!"
"Colin?" Ryan called, blindly reaching out as he tried
to sit up. He felt the other man's
hands take his.
"Ryan, is it really you?"
"Yes -- yes, it's me-"
Ryan's words were cut off by Colin's mouth over his, and then he
was enveloped in a warm
embrace. For a long while they stayed like that, wrapped
around each other, as Ryan's
vision slowly returned. When it did he found himself in his
own bedroom, on his own bed.
"Thank God," said Colin, kissing him again.
"Lewis said you'd be able to use the transporter
he was working on to send you back. I was so worried; we
all were. We have to call Drew
and Greg and Wayne and...welcome home, Ryan." He gave
him another kiss, and another.
Ryan kept a tight hold on his lover. "I missed you so
much," he whispered. "But it wasn't
just me that figured out how to get me home; it was Drew and Kate
and Oswald. They
helped me. I never would have made it without them."
Colin grinned. "Just like the Wizard of Oz,
right? That's what Lewis said."
"Yeah, except without the flying monkeys," he laughed.
"I would've thought DrugCo would have some in stock."
"Speaking of DrugCo, how did Lewis do while he was
here? I hope he wasn't too freaked
out by everything."
"No, he grooved on it. He acted like everything was
totally normal...in fact, if I hadn't
realized it wasn't you, he probably would have kept on
pretending."
Ryan beamed proudly. He'd known that Colin wouldn't have
had a problem telling him and
Lewis apart. "So you knew it wasn't me?"
Colin cocked his head. "Of course. After a
while."
Something about the way Colin answered made Ryan raise an
eyebrow. "What do you
mean, 'after a while'? I would've thought it would be
obvious...to you, anyway."
"It was, it was," Colin hastened to reassure him.
"Once I saw that huge bruise, believe me,
I knew. And I confronted him right away."
Ryan looked at him dubiously. "But for you to have
seen that, you would have had to have
seen him without his shirt on..." He gazed
incredulously at his lover. "Oh Colin, tell me you
didn't-"
"I didn't," the Canadian protested, sounding equal
parts indignant and hurt. "But he was
playing along so well, I really thought he was you. But we
didn't get very far before I
realized something was...different. He tried to talk his
way out of it, but I kept at him, and
he caved in and confessed pretty quickly after that," he
declared. Now he raised an
eyebrow. "Imagine my surprise."
Ryan felt a little better. "So nothing actually
happened?"
Colin looked at him warmly, reassuringly, with just a hint of
offended dignity mixed in.
The look made Ryan melt. "Nothing happened."
Ryan gathered him closer for yet another kiss.
Epilogue: Meanwhile, In Another Universe...
Lewis shook his head and tried to blink away the effects of the
flash. It felt like he was
on the floor again. "This is not something I want to
make a habit of," he groaned, rubbing
his head.
"Lewis?!?" came a trio of voices.
"Guys?" he exclaimed, groping blindly.
"Oswald?"
"I'm right here, buddy," came the warm reply, as he was
pulled into a giant bear hug.
When his vision cleared enough to make out their faces, he found
himself looking into
Oswald's eyes, with Drew and Kate hovering at either side.
Then he looked around. "What are we doing at
DrugCo?"
"Your damn machine blew up," said Drew dryly.
"We had to sneak back here to get
another one."
"Was Ryan here with you? Colin was very worried about
him."
"Of course he was here with us," replied Drew.
Now that Lewis was safe and back with
them, he was free to express his exasperation at having been put
through all this insanity.
"How else would you be here now?"
"Oh, right," said Lewis, then continued on
excitedly. "Guys, you would not believe what
I've been through..."
"What you've been through? Lewis, do you have
any idea what you've put us through?
All the trouble you've caused?" Drew continued
indignantly. "And by the way, you might
want to cover up that hickey on your neck. I guess we know
what you were getting up to
in that alternate dimension, while we were here working our butts
off trying to bring you
back."
Lewis's hand shot up to his neck, and he glared at them, a little
embarrassed. "It wasn't
like that. I was pretending to be Ryan, see, and I-"
"Come on, let's get out of here," said Kate with a
weary smile. "Before the monkopotamus
starts warming up his throwing arm. You can tell us all about
your visit to the weird parallel
universe on the way home."
Oswald helped Lewis to his feet, then steadied him as they walked
back, retracing their
steps to the outside door. Then they stepped out into the
cool night air, Oswald still
helping him as Drew and Kate went on ahead to start the truck.
When Oswald turned to him, Lewis could see that his eyes were
shining. He raised an
eyebrow. "Oswald?" he asked.
"I'm so glad you're back. I missed you," said
Oswald softly.
"I was afraid I'd never see you again." Lewis bit
his lip, wondering how much he should
say. "While I was away, I had time to...think about
some things," he confessed. The
encounter with Ryan's lover was foremost in his mind. It
had opened a door to a whole
new set of possibilities, ones he'd never considered before, but
now that he had... "I
missed you too. More than you can ever know."
"I think I might know," said Oswald shyly. Was he
blushing? "Ryan had, um...some insights
into your character. And mine, for that matter. You
know what I mean?" he asked. With
that, he gently reached over and took Lewis's hand in his own,
then looked up questioningly.
Lewis stared at him as understanding dawned. Then he smiled
-- a warm, happy smile --
and leaned down to place a quick kiss on the other man's lips.
THE END.