A/N: I really wanted to update this more this summer but so many things got in the way. I'm really sorry that all of you wonderful readers have to deal with these long waits just because I can't force words onto my computer screen.

In my defense, I had to deal with a major death in my family and I haven't been able to write much of anything. I'm still struggling so I can't begin to estimate a time for the next chapter so I'm sorry for the wait that is probably going to exist between this chapter and the next. I start college in exactly one week and it will keep me fairly busy for awhile. I will update whenever I can but I can't be sure of when that will be because I haven't gotten there yet.

I love reading all of your reviews and I appreciate everyone who keeps coming back to this fic despite the long breaks. Please continue to stay with me. I write for my own pleasure, but every time I see a new review or even a new reader, it makes me want to write so much more. I wanted to particularly thank Cornorama who I began talking to through my reviews and who has given me wonderful and insightful advice in dealing with my many personal issues over the past month or two.

The usual disclaimer applies: I own nothing. Please review!

Chick Flick

Chapter 22

Aftershocks

"They're dead! They're dead!" Cora screamed at the top of her lungs. The petite blonde stood shell-shocked in the middle of the room staring down in horror at two unconscious forms on the floor. In all of her eight years of life she had never felt such an intense urge to run away and yet somehow her feet felt weighted to the floor. "Somebody help me!"

She knew that she shouldn't have entered the room without her sister but she hadn't thought that anything this horrible could have happened in the short time that the power went out.

She had been in her room with Olivia when the lights flickered and the fortress began to shake and as soon as the fortress regained power, they both fled the room in a rush to make sure everyone else was okay. At the far end of the hallway Claire stood a few feet outside Lynzi's bedroom door looking frantically around while clutching tightly to a still dozing Lynzi. Olivia ran to Claire's side and Cora raced to keep up.

"Claire, what happened?" Olivia questioned anxiously.

"That's what I want to know," Claire responded in a clipped voice. She shifted Lynzi's weight on her hip and stared at Olivia curiously. "Did your brother mention that the boys were trying to run any tests on the computer? I don't understand how the power could have gone out. All of the control panels went into lockdown and I couldn't get out of Lynzi's room until the lights came back on."

Before Olivia could respond, Jillian came stumbling out of her room and into the hallway. "What the hell was that? One minute I'm listening to music on my bed and the next I'm sprawled out on the floor with a bump on my head!"

"We're just as confused as you are, Jill," Olivia shrugged and turned to respond to Claire's original question. "No, I was with Cora in her room. I haven't talked to Andy in hours."

"Is everyone all right?" John's voice echoed from the other side of the fortress.

"What's going on John?" Claire snapped.

"I'm trying to figure that out right now, Claire. I've got Andy here with me. Are you sure everyone is okay?" Concern was evident in his voice as well as a thick layer of confusion. The fortress wasn't supposed to have glitches and it most certainly wasn't supposed to lose power.

"I'm okay," a small voice, easily identified as Lysandra's, came from around the corner.

"Where's Leyna?" Claire asked, turning away from the direction of Lysandra's voice to stare in the direction of Leyna's door. Olivia and Jillian shared a nervous glance and Cora's fingers immediately began fiddling with a lock of her thick hair.

"She's still upset," Jillian responded quickly. "I was talking to her not too long ago and she said something about taking a nap. She probably slept through it."

"You're right. She looked tired. We should let her sleep," Olivia replied with an enthusiastic grin.

Claire's eyes narrowed infinitesimally. "Leyna isn't a heavy sleeper. Even in the middle of the night, all Lynzi has to do is think about crying and Leyna always manages to be awake and by her side. I'm going to make sure she's okay." Claire moved to walk past the other three girls but neither of them budged.

"How about you go lay Lynzi back down? I'll check on Leyna," Jillian smiled warmly.

"Here, let me help you!" Olivia casually wrapped her arm around Claire's waist and turned Claire toward Lynzi's bedroom door.

"Are you both sure you're okay?" Claire questioned in confusion, refusing to let Olivia escort her away from her goal.

"Of course!" Olivia and Jillian replied in unison as they tried to guide Claire a step closer to Lynzi's room. Cora glanced anxiously between the girls and took a large step backward. She watched as Claire began to turn around only to be stopped by Jillian's persistence.

"I think you both must have hit your heads," Claire said seriously. "What's wrong with you two?" she demanded, her voice rising with irritation.

"Nothing!" both girls spontaneously responded with innocent expressions plastered on their faces.

Claire frowned. "I think you're taking the whole we're-as-close-as-sisters thing a little too far. It's getting creepy. Now what is going on?"

Olivia opened her mouth to protest their innocence but Jillian cut her off. "It isn't really a big deal, Claire so don't freak out or anything—"

"I'm not feeling entirely comfortable with the way this conversation is starting. What did she do this time?"

Cora turned and peeked over her shoulder a final time to make sure the older girls were occupied with whatever they were conversing about before she darted away to check on Leyna. She didn't exactly know why Jillian and Olivia were trying to keep Claire away from Leyna, but she figured that it probably had a lot to do with the heavy box she had delivered to her earlier. Even though Leyna had a thing about keeping secrets, Claire was notorious for detecting them. This was her opportunity to warn Leyna and save the day once again. She wasn't about to waste her opportunity.

"Leyna was really upset," Olivia began.

Claire turned to her left to stare impatiently at Olivia to hear more of an explanation. "I know that. I was on my way to talk to her about it when all this chaos started."

"Well, Leyna handles stress differently than the rest of us do," Jillian added, trying to downplay Leyna's lack of coping skills.

Claire turned away from Olivia to face Jillian. "What's your point?" Claire asked, confused and irritated at their evasiveness.

"She might have figured out a way to have a few drinks," Jillian answered as delicately as possible.

"What?" Claire's eyes became narrow slits as she stared angrily at Jillian. "She's drunk!"

"Maybe, just a little," Olivia mumbled quietly.

Jillian shot Olivia an exasperated look. "There's no need to get upset. I took the bottles away so it really isn't that big of a deal. She's probably sleeping off what she drank before I got to her."

"Bottles? As in more than one?" Claire fumed. "How did she even get them in here? No one is stupid enough to give them to her…" Claire trailed off and focused her gaze on the empty space where Cora had been standing only moments before. "Olivia? Where's your sister?"

"What do you mean?" Olivia looked past Claire, expecting to see her younger sister waiting anxiously for them to stop arguing. "She was just there a second ago."

Jillian rolled her eyes. "Well, she's isn't anymore. She probably went to check on—" The sound of Cora's shrill scream cut the words off in Jillian's throat.

Claire wordlessly handed Lynzi to Olivia before she found her voice to finish Jillian's sentence with a sense of dread. "Leyna."

Cora's screams grew louder as Claire and Jillian sprinted down the hallway toward Leyna's room. Claire slammed her hand against the door's control panel and rushed into the room.

Cora was oblivious to the new occupants of the room and remained transfixed on the sight before her as she continued to scream for help.

Claire skidded to a stop next to Cora almost as soon as she entered the room and followed Cora's gaze to the floor where Leyna laid in a heap. "She's not dead, sweetie. She's just incredibly stupid," Claire's voice silenced Cora's screams, but the young girl continued to tremble with fright. "Wonderful. She passed out on the floor," Claire swiftly turned to glare at Jillian. "I thought you said she was only a little drunk? It would take a whole keg to make Leyna pass out!"

Jillian didn't respond.

"Jillian! How much did Leyna drink?" Claire demanded as she prodded her unconscious sister with her foot.

Jillian remained silent.

Claire threw her hands up in the air with disgust. "Am I the only one here who is remotely close to being sane?" She grabbed Cora by the hand and tugged her over to the portal where Jillian stood gaping. Claire waved her other hand in sharp motions in front of Jillian's face. "Earth to Jill. Come in, Jillian! Is anybody home?"

Jillian's thin hand shot out and grabbed Claire's hand in a vice grip. "Julian," she said in a raspy, emotionless voice.

"No, it's Claire," Claire stated slowly as if she were explaining something to Lynzi.

Jillian sighed in frustration. "No, Claire. Julian!" She pointed at another prone figure lying on the floor next to Leyna's bed. It was easy to see why Cora had thought he was dead. His face was as pale as any corpse and he was sprawled on the floor like a doll. He possessed only the vaguest signs of life and the small rising and falling movement indicated that he was struggling to cling to whatever was left of his fading existence.

Claire stared in astonishment at the half dead man on her sister's floor. Claire was horrified that she had been able to completely overlook the gasping figure when she first entered the room. He was battered and bruised and had his clothes torn from his body. "This isn't possible," she gasped as she stepped over Leyna's body so that she could kneel down beside him.

Claire pulled him partially into her arms and brushed aside his long hair that covered most of his face. She couldn't believe how much he still resembled Jillian. "Julian?" Claire gasped. "This can't be happening. How did he get here?"

Jillian looked as though she was in a daze. "Julian," she let the name slip from her lips and continued to stare in amazement at her brother.

John appeared suddenly through the portal, nearly running into Jillian and Cora in the process. "Olivia said you needed help. What's going on?" His eyes drifted to Leyna on the floor and his mouth formed a thin line of disapproval. "This definitely wasn't what I was expecting." He figured Claire and Leyna would eventually have to resolve their issues with each other but he never thought that they'd actually get violent. He also never would have thought that Leyna would be on the losing end of the fight. "Is there a logical explanation as to why Leyna is on the floor?"

"Julian," Jillian answered simply as she grinned at John.

John's brow furrowed in obvious confusion. He looked past Leyna and his mind registered that instead of caring for her unconscious sister, Claire was focusing on an unconscious someone else. "Claire? What's going on?"

Claire's wide eyes shot up to meet his with a look of shock and horror. "It's Julian!" she squeaked in a stress rattled high-pitched voice.

John took a ragged, deep breath and searched the other faces in the room for an explanation. He could see that Cora and Jillian were obviously in shock, Leyna was completely unaware of the chaos around her, Claire looked as if she too was about to succumb to either shock or unconsciousness, and Leyna's long lost boyfriend was cradled in Claire's lap like an infant.

"Julian's back," John mumbled to no one in particular as he bent down to scoop Leyna off the floor so he could place her up onto her bed. Looking down at her, he sighed loudly and shook his head. "Julian's back and Leyna is unconscious on the floor. Why am I not surprised?"

"Urgh."

It had been a long time since Leyna had actually felt the effects of her excessive alcohol consumption. She started to use drinking as one of many ways to rebel against her parents, namely her father. In those early days she had only been a social drinker, having a glass or two when she snuck into bars with her friends. Even at fourteen, it wasn't all that difficult for her to get into the best clubs in town. Julian and his friends had some sway over who was allowed VIP entrances to their weekly parties so no one ever really questioned her when she had a few drinks with the rest of the crew.

However, as time went on she began to find that she needed a few more shots of whiskey until she could forget her problems and have fun with everyone else. By that point in time she began to notice that she developed a tolerance and hangovers ceased to be a problem. She began to be such a popular face in most of the local clubs that some nights she would go out without Julian and would still be welcomed with a smile and a glass of something strong and liberating.

The only glitch in her wild and crazy lifestyle happened when Julian's mom died. He immediately developed aversions to anything and everything that he and Leyna had previously thought was fun, especially drinking. He even tried to get her to curb her partying ways, but he wasn't always able to watch her and she fell even deeper into the night scene. She went into a death spiral for those first two weeks after her parents died because by that point Julian was gone as well. She lived a double life of devastated child and devoted older sister by day and carefree party girl and miserable wretch by night.

It wasn't until she managed to survive two weeks of no sleep and a constant state of inebriation that they decided to use the white fortress to save the other universe's Lois and Clark. As soon as they entered the fortress and began their preparations, Leyna was forced to completely forget her penchant for drinks because hurricane Claire made even thinking about drinking impossible. Leyna wasn't stupid. She knew that she needed a clear head to be of any value in solving this problem. Leyna never used drinking to solve problems because she knew it couldn't be done. However, she was quite proficient in using drinking to ignore and forget problems. In fact, if it weren't for her quick thinking and those extra bottles she snuck into the fortress with Cora, she might have never been able to deal with the emotional weight of her fight with John and Claire. If it wasn't for those extra bottles, she wouldn't be feeling the same way she felt after her first real beer binge back in the days before tolerance and broken hearts.

If it weren't for those extra bottles…

"Urgh!" she groaned again, this time with more emphasis, as she flipped herself onto her stomach and buried her head into a pillow that was too plump and squishy to be her own. This was not a feeling she liked to remember.

There must have been something wrong with the lights because they were definitely way too bright. Her first attempt to open her eyes sent her deeper into the depths of the unfamiliar pillow. She felt as if she was staring directly at the sun or as though her eyes were burning from fire hidden behind her closed lids. It definitely wasn't something she wanted to try again. She let out a small whimper of dissatisfaction and sighed into the pillow. She supposed she could live for awhile without opening her eyes. It wouldn't be the easiest thing to do but at least her eyeballs would remain safely inside their sockets.

Someone was playing the drums right next to her ear. It was a steady thudding noise that seemed to be getting louder as she grew more irritated. It reminded her of back when she and Lysandra used to listen to Julian's band practice. Only now it sounded like the drummer was having difficultly keeping a steady beat. It was obnoxious and it was loud. Extremely loud.

Why on Earth would someone be playing the drums next to a sleeping person? Who could possibly be that cruel? Leyna could think of a few names but she couldn't imagine that any of them would waste their ambition on trying to make her go blind and deaf. Besides making her really pissed off, nothing would come out of it. There had to be another, more logical explanation. She needed something that would make sense of why she was being bombarded with bright lights and an increasingly annoying sound of a drummer trying to keep pace with her heartbeats.

For an instant the drumming stopped. Leyna flew up into a sitting position on a small pullout bed and winced as more bright light reached her senses. As soon as shapes were visible she was able to make out the distinct image of a heart monitor. The drumming continued, although now at a slightly elevated pace.

She glanced to her right.

A large white wall.

To her left.

A thin curtain that separated her bed from the other side of the room.

Where am I?

Whose pillow was I lying on?

Am I in a hospital?

Why am I hooked up to a heart monitor?

"Cora made us hook you up to it," Claire spoke up in a tentative whisper from the foot of the bed.

Leyna's breath caught in her throat from surprise. She was so transfixed by the heart monitor and the deafening noise it was making that she hadn't noticed Claire staring anxiously at her only a few feet away. "What?" Leyna's usually powerful voice came out as a dry croak.

"You passed out, Leyna," Claire said with more confidence than she felt. She ignored Leyna's wince at the sound of her voice, but decided to continue the conversation in a whisper instead of the forceful tone she generally used when talking to Leyna. "Cora found you and thought that she killed you by giving you the box you used to hide your stash in. The only way John could get her to leave was by hooking you to a heart monitor to prove that you were alive. Even that wasn't enough to assure her completely. She keeps checking in every fifteen minutes to see if you're up yet."

Leyna cleared her throat but it did little to relieve the roughness of her voice. "I passed out?" There was obvious astonishment in her expression. This had never been a problem for her before.

"Yes," Claire answered sharply.

Leyna winced again. "Cora found me?"

"Yes."

"Oh," Leyna said softly. She thought back to her last memory. She knew that Cora gave her the box and that she had definitely had more than enough to drink, but nowhere near what she usually drank in an average night. She also recalled conversations with Jillian and Lysandra after she had finished drinking. Unless she had somehow gotten the bottles back from Jillian, which was highly unlikely, there was no way she would have been drunk enough to pass out yet still coherent enough to have conversations. She wracked her brain trying to remember what was missing but came up with a blank. Lysandra left her room and the rest was a complete void.

Claire stared questioningly at her sister. She knew that a lot had happened in a short period of time. She understood that Leyna might still be coming to terms with Julian's reappearance and might need some time before she was able to talk about it. Claire could be sympathetic. She had played that role plenty of times before. However, as sympathetic as she was, Claire wasn't very good with silence and she was definitely not patient enough to wait for Leyna to break it. "Leyna?"

Leyna recoiled slightly from the sound of Claire's voice and averted her gaze to her lap. "There's no need to yell, Claire. I've learned my lesson. No more drinking."

Claire rolled her eyes. "I'm not yelling," she said in a hushed whisper. "Are you okay?" she asked gently.

Leyna's eyes narrowed as she looked up to study Claire's concerned expression. Why is there no yelling? Did someone replace Claire with a clone? Claire wouldn't act like this to me unless…Did I die? "Umm… why may I ask, aren't you yelling?" I must have died and somehow John found a way to defy all logic and brought me back. That's why I don't remember and that's why Claire is acting more strange than usual.

Claire frowned at Leyna's assumption. Am I really that predictable? "I think that you've been through a lot today so I'll give you a break this time. I didn't get to apologize to you before all hell broke loose so now is probably a good a time as any to say—"

"Claire, what are you talking about? I know we had a fight but am I missing something? What is going on?"

"You don't remember?" Claire's worried eyes inadvertently traveled to the thin curtain she had used to divide the center of the room for privacy.

Leyna's eyebrows furrowed as her sister smiled way too innocently. "Claire?"

"Yes?"

"Who is on the other side of the curtain?"

"No one," she answered with a timid smile.

"Open the curtain, Claire." Leyna's voice lacked all emotion but contained enough force that Claire didn't entertain the thought of disobeying.

The metallic rings that held the curtain in place shifted slowly as Claire pushed the curtain aside. Leyna's eyes followed each individual ring until they stopped at the wall, revealing an identical bed with a very familiar unconscious person lying in it.

Leyna's eyes widened. "It wasn't a dream," she gasped.

"Nope," Claire awkwardly agreed.

Leyna threw her sheets aside and leapt from the bed onto her unsteady feet. The room swirled around her in a blur of bright colors and odd shapes. The sudden movement made her stomach lurch dramatically and her face instantly paled. "Ooh…bad idea," she groaned as she expelled her stomach contents onto the pristine white floor.