11Disclaimer: If I owned So Weird, it would still be on air, or at least on DVD. It isn't, so I obviously don't own it.
While Jack and Clu were talking to Rebecca, the real Fiona Phillips had just awoken from the darkness. She looked around and saw that she was in her room and the spunkie was gone without a trace. She was about to rush to find Jack and Carey to see if they noticed anything when the door opened and a blonde girl walked in followed by Clu.
"Who are you? And why are you here?" Fi asked, first indicating the blonde and then Clu, who should have been at college.
"Hi, Fi. It's Annie Thelen," the blonde girl, Annie, said confused, "We met last night, remember?"
"Yeah, Fi. Annie came with her mom to visit last night. What's with you, acting like you don't want me around?" Clu said.
"Umm... nothing. I just... forgot," she said, lamely.
"Right..." Clu said
"Anyways, you wanna go bike riding with us?" Annie asked.
"No thanks, I kind of have to meet somebody."
After Clu and Annie left, Fi went in search of her brother. Before she found him, she ran into Carey, who was rummaging through the refrigerator without any crutches.
This is getting too weird, Fi thought, but she was determined to find out what happened.
"Hey, Carey," she asked casually, "Have you seen Jack around?"
Keeping his eyes focused on the food, he answered, "No... he's away visiting Gabe, remember? He won't be back for another week."
Fi's eyes widened. Whenever things got too weird for her to handle, she had always relied on Jack to bring her back to reality. And now, just when she needed him most, he was gone.
"Great. Now what?" she said quietly.
"If you need to talk to him that badly, just call him," Carey suggested.
"I don't know the number!" Fi exclaimed.
Carey closed the refrigerator door, pointed at a piece of paper held on it by a lighthouse magnet and said, "There's the number. Same place as it's been for, like, the past month. And look on the counter and you'll see the phone."
"Oh, right... I knew that," Fi told him sheepishly.
After Carey left the room, Fi tore the slip of paper off the fridge, picked up the phone and dialed the number scribbled on the paper.
"Hey, this Jack..."
"Jack!" Fi exlaimed the sound of her brother's voice, "You gotta help m-"
"... right now but leave a message and I'll get back to you."
Fi's heart sank and she didn't even bother to leave a message. What was wrong with the world, she wondered. She was still in her own house, with people she knew- with the exception of that Annie girl, yet Fi felt completely lost. She decided to go to the garage to catch up with Clu and Annie and go bike riding to see if the rest of Hope Springs felt normal.
Just as Fi stepped outside, she could see a familiar figure in the distance. "Mommy," Fi murmured, unsure if this was real or not. When her mother came into a clearer view, Fiona couldn't have cared less if this was a dream, a trap, or reality. All that mattered was that she could see her mother again.
Without thinking, Fi ran to her mom, hugged her tightly, and told her how much she missed her.
"Missed me?" Molly asked her daughter, "We've only been gone twenty minutes."
Then Fiona realized that her mom was accompanied by a blonde woman who wasn't Irene.
"It felt like you were gone a lot longer," Fi commented, "Where were you, anyway?"
"Shopping," she replied, holding up plastic bags filled with clothes, "I told you that earlier, honey, don't you remember?"
Fiona knew that it would seem to everyone else that she was being unusually forgetful, so she lied and told her mother, "Ummm... actually I tripped and hit my head on my desk. I guess I just lost some of my memory for a bit."
"Are you okay?" her mother questioned.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It just feels weird not to know what's going on," Fi said truthfully.
Molly guided her guest and her daughter inside and dropped the bags of clothing on the floor. Turning to the blonde lady, she said, "Lisa, would you mind giving me some time alone with my daughter?"
After Lisa left, Molly was about to ask Fi a question but the telephone rang before she could. Molly briefly left the room to answer the phone before calling Fi into the kitchen. Hanging up the phone, she said, "That was Jack. He said somebody from the house called him. Was it you?"
"Oh, yeah. After I fell I was kind of confused and just wanted to talk to someone," Fi answered.
"Confused? Are you sure you're okay, sweetie?" her mom said with concern in her voice.
Fi smiled and reassured her mother that she was fine and maybe she just needed some fresh air. Fiona stepped outside to walk off the excitement that was bubbling inside her from seeing her mother again.
Fi was about to walk back inside to help her mom make dinner when she felt someone yank her behind a large bush. She was shocked to find herself facing her older brother.
"Jack? How-when did you..." Fi stammered, flabbergasted. Wasn't he just on the phone talking to mom? Fi wondered.
Jack smiled and said, "It's good to see you, too, sis."
"But how are you here?" Fi asked.
"It's a long story," he told her, "I'll tell you when we get back, but right now we gotta leave."
"What are you talking about?" Fi asked him, "We're home and mom's home... and back to where?"
"Fi, this isn't real. Mom's dead, remember?"
Fi shook her head, "But she's here. I don't want to lose her again."
"Fi, you already lost her. Living in this fantasy world won't bring her back," Jack reasoned.
"This can't be a fantasy... I didn't know those blonde people, Annie and Lisa. If this is a fantasy, how am I imagining people I've never met?" Fi asked him.
"I don't know, but you can't stay here," Jack said.
"And why not?" Fi asked him with her arms crossed in front of her, as though daring him to try to take her away.
"Because you don't belong here," he said patiently.
Fi shook her head and whispered, "You're not my brother. The real Jack would never in a million years suggest that something out of the ordinary was going on."
"I know I wouldn't, but you have to trust me," Jack pleaded.
Fi let out a small laugh, "Trust you? Who are you? Or better yet, what are you?"
"Supposedly, a reincarnated knight," he replied, "And I'm definitely your brother."
"Yeah, right," Fi murmured sarcastically as she turned to leave.
"Fi, don't go back in there! The longer you stay, the harder it'll be to leave," Jack warned, "You've already been gone a whole week."
"A week? I just woke up barely an hour ago!" Fi exclaimed, "This is nuts, even for me. I'm just gonna go back inside, and pretend this didn't happen."
Before Jack could stop her, Fiona ran back into the house.
Jack spent most of the next two days in the woods behind his backyard, keeping an eye on everyone in the house from a distance. He felt like a stalker, hiding out, watching his family and friends, but he knew that none of this was real. He just had to convince his sister of that, which was quite difficult since she had steered clear of the backyard since their last meeting.
Jack thought about entering the house and speaking to his sister there, but he knew that he couldn't do that. If he did, he didn't know if he would be affected by the enchantment that had ensnared his sister. Besides, he had already been warned about the dangers of messing around in different times or dimensions and Jack wasn't about to do anything that could get him or his sister killed.
Jack was just thinking about a way he could possibly lure his sister away from that dream home when she came running from the house towards the large bush where they last met. Jack hurried to meet her there and asked, "Fi, are you okay? What happened?"
"I'm fine," she replied in a gloomy voice, "But mom just told me that she's gonna let me stay at Aunt Melinda's for a year while she goes on tour and Annie's gonna take my room on the bus. Mom said that this is what I wanted since I gave up on weird stuff, but this just doesn't feel right..."
"That's because this isn't right," Jack told her, "Fi, we're in another dimension. A dimension that shows what life would be like if mom hadn't died. But we don't belong here and we have to go back to where we do belong."
Fi sighed and said, "I knew this was too good to be true, but I don't want to leave."
"I know, but we have to. We have more important things to worry about," Jack said.
"But you still haven't told me-"
"I'll tell you everything later," Jack interrupted, "It isn't safe here. We better go before-"
Jack was cut off by a sudden flash of green light as time seemed to freeze. Fi groaned as she realized that she was in the Nexus and that had to mean that a mischievous spunkie was nearby.
Sure enough, the will o' the wisp floated out from behind the bush and said, "Leaving already? I thought living a normal life was what you wanted. Go off to live with your aunt in Seattle, and I can guarantee that no evil spirit will ever bother you again. All you have to do is read that incantation I showed you and get rid of that old ring."
"Why are you doing this?" Fi asked, suspicious of Bricriu's actions. She knew better than to believe that the spunkie really wanted to help her since he never did anything that would benefit anybody but himself.
"Well, Little Duck, we've become such good friends over our previous encounters and I would hate to see you living so miserable, with all those paranormal interruptions," he said.
"I don't trust you," Fi told him, "Every time you show up in my life, bad things happen. Why should I do what you want?"
"But it isn't what I want," Bricriu replied, "It's what you want. You've been whining about how much you want a normal life because you blame evil spirits for the death of your parents, have you not?"
"How do you know that? I never said any of that out loud!"
"You learn a lot about people when you possess them," Bricriu said.
"But when..." Fi trailed off as a look of realization crossed over her face, "You brought me here."
"Very good, Little Duck. Of course, you do realize that since I was the one who brought you here, I'm the only one who can bring you back to your former life."
Fi shook her head, "No... if that were true, you would have just left me here. You wouldn't have asked me if this is what I wanted."
"I don't need to ask you, whether you admit it or not, this life is what you want," Bricriu said before circling around the frozen form of Jack, "It's what he's always wanted too; a normal sister who didn't get involved with unusual circumstances. And after all, you don't even know if this is the real Jack."
Fi bit her lower lip as she thought about everything the spunkie was saying. This was her one shot of having a normal life and although it meant her mother would live, it didn't make a difference because Fi would be living with her aunt in Seattle.
"If I agree to stay here, would I still be able to talk to my family?" she asked.
"That would be entirely up to you," Bricriu replied.
"And what about everything that happened before... in my former life?"
"What about it? You'll remember most of it and a few things that haven't really happened to you, but in this life have," he told her.
"Don't do it, Fi!" Jack shouted.
Fi's eyes widened in surprise, "Jack, what happened? You're... not frozen..."
"That's because I have this," Jack said as he pulled out the angel necklace he got from Gabe, "Come on, Fi, let's get outta here."
He grabbed his sister's arm, but Fiona pulled back, shaking her head.
"I'm not going with either of you until I find out exactly what's going on!" she shouted, glaring at both of them.
"Well, then, Little Duck, it looks like we'll be here awhile..." Bricriu responded.