How Many Roads

(About 6 months after Independent Ops)

Annie never quite remembered just what had come between her and her sister, Ruth. There was some argument, and Annie got under Ruth's skin. And stayed there.

Ray recognized it right away. Annie had decided to prove that she was in charge of the relationship. That Ruth wouldn't dare punish her for being an itty bitty bitch.

He stayed in his chair, though, surfing the net and waiting to see if Ruth needed rescue.

Instead, the teen just stopped talking in mid-sentence, stood up and walked out. He'd never thought of that. Of course, when Annie was in the test-to-destruction phase of their relationship, he'd have had to sleep in the stairwell to do that.

Annie froze, staring at where Ruth had shut the door. She hadn't even slammed it. Said no goodbyes and made no plans for 'when shall we two meet again.'

Until they heard the car back out of the driveway, the others sylphs in the house didn't even know she was leaving.

Everyone made their way to the living room to see what was going on.

"I don't… I don't know," Annie said. She was truly confused. She hadn't consciously picked a fight with her sister so she didn't remember the fight.

"Ruth decided to leave before she said anything Annie would regret," Ray said. "Annie's driven her off, but she'll be back."

He scooped up his pet and tucked her into his shirt pocket. "Maybe you should reflect on the fact that I'm not Ruth," he told her.

"What the hell does that mean?" Annie snarled.

"A long time ago, you mapped out how far I'd let you go before I snapped. Now you're doing that to your sister.

"But she has more class than I did. You're waiting for her to start calling you names or lock you up, she just won't play that game."

"But I didn't- I wouldn't-," she protested. He pushed her head down below the buttonhole. Then he untucked the flap on the pocket and shut it.

"I suggest you reflect," he ordered. Then in a lighter tone, "Go easy on the kid. Without you, she wouldn't exist."

"Lucky her," Annie muttered. Then she curled up on her side and considered things. There wasn't too much to consider, as she really hadn't thought she did anything wrong.

And the body heat of her judgmental master penetrated her body and slowed her breathing and dried her tears and she dozed…

---------

The house she'd spent Hurricane Kissy in hadn't technically been abandoned. They'd sealed the doors and boarded the windows to protect against weather and vermin.

But it was empty.

Something made her dream about that night afterwards. It was no great psychological mystery. She had Ray all to herself, he built her a fire and protected her.

But in the dreams, he was usually a sylph, not the remote. And he brought or found food. And he wasn't in a hurry to wander around in the storm outside.

Tonight, though, she was alone. The house was as huge and empty as ever, and as dark. The storm raged outside, a steady rain and a nasty wind.

And something tapped on glass. She looked around. Nothing outside could reach any of the windows. She turned, following the tapping.

There was another difference in this dream. This time, there was a mirror in the living room. A huge thing looming up into the rafters.

And on the other side, Annie saw herself. A human-sized Annie, smiling down at the sylph and tapping on the glass with a long, blood-red fingernail.

Annie stepped towards the mirror, then stopped. She didn't want to trade places with mirror-self-Annie. There was no way Pet was in there.

No possible way a non-sylph Annie ever met Pet on a food-court table. Or met Poultry over international travel restrictions.

Biggie Annie kept tapping the glass, Sylph Annie shook her head and backed away. And there would be no Ruth in that place. Her sister was born to prove that her parents weren't cursed.

The Annie in the mirror looked frustrated, then started pounding on the glass with both hands. The mirror itself shook, bouncing a bit off the wall.

Suddenly it fell off the hook or the nail or whatever held it up. There was a thud as it touched the floor, then it tipped over.

As it fell, the figure in the mirror positioned her hands to capture the sylph it was falling down onto.

----------

"You alright?"

Annie sat up and looked around. She was in a changing room. The mirror had fallen off the wall. Claire held it.

Annie got to her feet and helped put the mirror back into place.

"You okay?" Claire repeated.

"Yeah, sure," Annie said. "Just felt dizzy for a moment." They stepped out of the changing room and into the store.

Annie recognized it instantly. Well, that was silly, she thought. She'd been working here for a year, of course she recognized it.

It was the lingerie store she and Mia had designed. She wasn't, quite, a partner, since she'd failed out of college her sophomore year. Daddy wouldn't throw any more money 'down the bottomless pit,' as he put it, so she couldn't bring much to a partnership.

But she was able to work the long hours. Mia took care of the financial side, Annie was at the counter almost every moment the store was open.

Kinda made it difficult to have any sort of home life, but it also made it nearly impossible to go over to the folks' place and be told what a loser she was.

She glanced over the stock and the two customers. Four teenaged boys were outside, trying to be nonchalant as they peered inside.

"Pervs," she muttered. "What," she asked as she turned towards the counter, "is it about little boys in their bedrooms?"

"What bedroom?" Claire asked.

Annie paused, then waved around at the merchandise. "Bedroom thoughts, bedroom fantasies, choreographing bedroom liaisons…" she guessed.

The girl nodded and went back to sorting a row of panties by slogan.

"Oh! How did your date go?" she called to Annie.

"A dud," she replied. "Ten minutes in, all he wanted to know was if I was a premillennialist or a postmillennialist."

"What is that?"

"I don't know. Something about vegan nutrition, I think. Millennial flowers, maybe?" Annie checked the time. Deliveries weren't going to be made for another hour or so, and there was a Jaguars game this afternoon. "So, I ordered a steak, ate it, then came back here and let Jasmine go home early."

There was almost no point at all to being at the mall when a Jaguars game was on. The only shoppers out were not in the mood to tease, taunt or please their husbands.

Anyone with a lover was already there, and probably already naked.

No one came in this store from kickoff to the final talking-head's comment on the game.

But at least that meant they could watch the game on the TV behind the counter. Or she could. "Claire? Why don't you go home for the evening?"

"If you're firing me, I need severance pay before Friday."

"No, no, just a Football Sunday, so no point in both of us staring at the satin-covered walls."

------------

She found herself staring at the kiosk in the center of the mall hallway, thinking idly of weight loss plans, when the guy walked in.

She'd swear she knew him. Plain, cute-ish, average height (although she thought he looked way too short for some reason), he looked a little uncomfortable as he walked across the threshold.

"Relax, sir," she said. "The lingerie doesn't bite. And the models that do aren't working today."

He smiled at her comment and wonder of wonders, visibly DID relax. "Your sense of humor is wasted in retail," he told her.

"Oh, that line came out of a fortune cookie," she shrugged. "What can I help you with, today?"

"Need a gift for my girlfriend," he said.

For a brief, shining instant, Annie could SEE his girlfriend. Slender, tall, red-headed and… And there was something about her shoulder. A hamster?

She turned and grabbed a teddy. "This would set off her hair wonderfully," she said.

"Really? I don't know anything about that sort of thing," he replied. "I'm the original computer nerd." He took the hanger out of her hands, though, and looked the piece over. "This is a good color for blondes?"

"Blonde?"

"Yeah, Bebe's a blonde," he said absently, trying to pretend he wasn't reading the price tag upside down.

"I didn't know anyone was still being named Bebeast," Annie said.

"Well, they may have stopped," he agreed, but it was still legal at least 24 years ago."

"Oh, of course," she nodded. She looked around for something brighter, bustier, possibly with itching powder in the inseam. Wait, why did she hate this guy's girlfriend?

"Wait, did you say BeBEAST?" he asked, handing the teddy back where it came from. "That's cute. And when she doesn't get her way, it's accurate, too." When he muttered something about 'must remember that,' Annie thought he just might be programming it onto a hard drive.

"Double D's?" Annie asked, pulling a sailor-suit sort of thing into the air.

"Yes," he said. But instead of the satin, he was staring at the clerk. "Excuse me, but you seem to know a lot about my girlfriend."

"My psychic power," she said. "All the good ones are taken, and I know who took 'em." Her voice was a little bitter at the end. She tried to shake off the mood.

He tried to laugh, pretending it was another bit of her humor. She thanked him for trying, but only with her eyes and a nod.

He nodded back, message received.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked.

"I… I may be low on blood sugar," she said. "Haven't eaten since…"

"Can you close the shop? Or, I could run and get something."

"Oh, and that'll give me time to sew itching powder into the crotch!"

"Not the crotch," he said. "I have a vested interest. But the ass? She doesn't really like me paying any attention there. You can itch away, there."

He took her order for Subway and walked out. She wrapped the lingerie, unadulterated, in a gift box. And waited. He was a long time coming back.

She'd just decided that he'd ditched her when he reappeared, but carrying a box of pizza. She raised one eyebrow.

"The Sbarro's television is on the front counter, where you can draw their attention," he said. "Subway's is in the kitchen and they never heard me."



She made room at the counter and they had a pleasant dinner together. She laughed at all his jokes, he ignored her odd moments of psychic certainty.

By the end of the pizza, they were finishing each other's sentences.

She bent to stuff the empty box in the trash when she saw the present. In bright, primary colors, as for a child.

As for… A younger sibling!

She DID have Ruth in this world.

"What's a ruthin?" he asked. She shushed him.

"Maybe she was just a change of life baby!" Annie cooed. She brought the box up into view and peered at it. "I'll get a sister no matter what I do!"

"A sister named Richard, I take it," he said, finger on the gift tag.

"What? No, no, no, no! Not a little brother! I can't DO little brothers. I'll look CREEPY going to HIS prom!"

"Happy 8th birthday," the guy read. "I think you have time to figure out the prom question." He grabbed her upper arms. "Hey, look! Calm down!"

"No! I have to go back! If I can't have both, I'd rather have Ruth! I can put up with… With…"

"With?" he asked. He seemed really interested.

"With you," she said. He took her into a hug. A big hug. His arms went around and around her and then top to bottom and suddenly she woke up in a tiny, cotton sauna.

Screaming Ruth's name at the top of her lungs.

"We'll be there in ten minutes," Ray said.

"What?" She stood calmly and he opened the pocket. They were in the car, headed south on the Connector.

"I called Ruth. Explained that you were mad at me for hiding all your chocolate this morning.

"Ruth decided that you're unlikely to be a bitch in front of your mother, so she asked if you could spend the night, until you weren't mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you," Annie said, slightly dazed. "You haven't touched my chocolate."

She spun, suddenly, staring up at his chin. "You haven't, have you?"

"No. But it's easier to claim that I was a dick than making your sister believe that you're being a total c-word."

"That's true," Annie nodded. She crept up the shirt and nuzzled the giant neck. "Thanks for covering for me," she said. "And, uh, well, thanks."

"You're welcome," he said. He let go of the wheel just long enough to press her into his skin for a hug. He didn't seem to need to know what for.

She wasn't sure she knew, either. She kinda remembered a pizza…?

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