A/N: Okay, so here's the first chapter! It may be a bit confusing at the beginning, but please bear with me.

I got this first little tidbit from my own imagination, from a story I thought up but couldn't really develop.

The main confusing elements will be 'The Realities'. So, I'll clear it up right now.

The Real Earth: Follows the movie as it was written, with Leslie dead.

The Alternate Earth: The 'LDD' world. :) Leslie lives, and has her daughter, Samantha, with Jess.

So, anyway, I hope you enjoy, even though this first chapter might be confusing. R&R!

-Emily

PS: I'll be writing the second-to-last chapter of 'Fifteen Sweet Things' in a day or so. :)

Chapter 1

Doctor Lewis Howard

Tonight, a strange man named Lewis Howard sits at his computer. He's so close, so close…

POP! The computer dies. Cursing to himself, Howard turns off his desk lamp. Even though his tiny, dirty apartment is pitch black, he knows where to dump his cold coffee, where to find his whiskey bottle, how to find the shot glasses, and the couch, which has its Hide-a-Bed out.

Lewis takes his drink to his bed, and collapses on the soiled, unmade sheets of the Hide-a-Bed. He pours the amber liquid into the glass and swigs. In the act of doing so, his arm hits a manila folder and knocks it to the ground.

Not that he cares.

Right now, Lewis would have burned that folder. That folder…

Though he's only had one drink, Doctor Howard feels as though he's had twenty. He fights the urge to vomit, fights the tears, the memories…

Terabithia.

That's what the boy called it, wasn't it?

Yes.

Terabithia.

He didn't call it Terabithia when he and Maddie Hanson built the fortress in the woods, when they hung the rope, when the felt the magic for the first time. Honestly, he couldn't remember what Maddie had named their kingdom. All he remembered was Maddie.

Maddie…

The tears were falling freely as he remembered the first time he met eyes with Madison Karen Hanson.

Lewis had always been a bit of a loner, head always in advanced mathematics and science textbooks. Everyone had made fun of him, taunted him for not having many friends. Actually, he had NO friends. Not one.

Until that day.

The first day of fifth grade.

The teacher was reading the instructions off the blackboard when the principal entered, a girl with him.

The girl was tall, with curly, fluffy, brown hair and coke-bottle glasses. The girl met Lewis's eye, he held it.

The girl…she was… it looked like she was…reading him.

Yes.

The girl was reading him. Reading him like a book.

He looked away. But the eyes were still there, challenging him. Yelling at him. 'Let someone know you!' they were saying.

But he wouldn't give in.

Never. He wouldn't give in.

"Miss Tyler, this is Madison Hanson." The Principal spoke up.

"I like to be called Maddie."

Miss Tyler smiled at Maddie. "Very well then, Maddie. I'm afraid we don't have a desk available for you to sit at just yet. Do you mind sitting at mine?"

"No Ma'am." Maddie said.

"I see you're in good hands, Miss Hanson." The Principal said with a smile.

Maddie smiled back. "I think so too, Principal Turner."

He left.

Lewis finally trusted his eyes to look at this new girl. Thankfully, her eyes were gone. His eyes stayed on her until she sat down. As she sat, however, mountains of books fell from her bag. A few kids chuckled. Maddie's books were science books.

Lewis stayed silent.

The scientist was sobbing now.

"Maddie!" He screamed. "I'm sorry!"

Oh yes, he WAS sorry. Very sorry.

You see, dear readers, Maddie Hanson was Lewis's first friend. Ever. They stayed friends until high school. Because, in high school, Maddie and Lewis got in their first fight.

The girl was being offered a full scholarship to a science school in Norwalk. Lewis was angry because he had applied as well, and had not been accepted. They had promised to only go together. They were best friends, after all. But Lewis had not been accepted.

And now Maddie had the mind to go alone.

He was so very hurt by his friend, her words, the words she had said that Friday he could not bear to relive.

And, in the end, she went alone.

Before they made up.

Now, Howard felt remorse. He tried, every year, to get to Maddie. But, she wouldn't talk to him. He figured she was still angry with him for what he said before freshman year began.

Or, that's what he thought.

Before he got the call.

The call the changed him forever.

It was his senior year of high school. Lewis was all packed up, ready to go home to Lark Creek for the Christmas holidays. He was just about to leave his dorm when the phone rang.

It was Maddie's mother, Mrs. Hanson. She was crying.

And poor Mrs. Hanson had every right to cry.

Because, you see, her only daughter was dead.

Lewis couldn't breathe as he listened to the sobbing mother. Maddie had been murdered.

She was on a train, and she noticed one of her classmates from the science school. He was an ex-boyfriend, actually. She stood up to wave, and he killed her. Shot her, right in the chest.

Now, readers, do you know why Maddie was on that train? Do you know where she was going?

Well, I'll tell you where Maddie was going.

She was going to Lark Creek, Virginia, to make up with her old friend, Lewis Howard.

Now, this drove Lewis insane. He thought everything was his fault. He believed that, if he had pushed himself harder in the sciences, he would have been able to go with Maddie to that school, and they wouldn't have fought. She wouldn't have been on that train, looking for him.

She wouldn't be dead.

So he pushed himself, very, very, VERY hard in the sciences. He studied everything, but especially alternate realities. Maybe, just maybe, he could…

Originally, he had been working in a big office in New York City. But recently, something had pulled him back to Lark Creek.

The death of a young girl named Leslie Burke.

Leslie's face had been plastered over every TV station, every newspaper. Her death, it was so…uncommon. She had been swinging on a rope swing, and it broke, sending poor Leslie into the water, where she hit her head, lost consciousness, and drowned. Sick as it may be, Howard was now obsessed with death, especially those of children and young adults. How did it happen? He couldn't help but wonder. So, he packed up his research and headed back to his hometown.

He learned the whereabouts of the Burke place from some loose-lipped old lady in the town. He learned what had happened to Leslie from her, as well as some other interesting pieces of information.

The old Lark Creek Elementary principal had died the previous fall, and now his son, Earnest Turner Junior, was principal.

Young Miss Tyler, his fifth grade teacher, wasn't so young anymore, and was no longer a 'Miss'. She was now Mrs. Gussie Myers, but her husband, Todd, was sick in the hospital.

And when he went to the Burke place, he found Maddie's rope swing broken.

Other children had found Maddie's land. Or was it just Leslie? He didn't know, but something told him it wasn't just Leslie. This was a land for friends. And somebody else must know about the special place in the wood, because, beneath the rope, was a bridge.

Over the bridge was a sign that read: "We Rule Terabithia, And NOTHING Crushes Us!"

So, the new children called it Terabithia. Nice name. He was determined to find Leslie Burke's friend, get whoever it was to tell him about this 'Terabithia'.

Within a few days, Lewis Howard got his wish. On the third day of his stakeout, a boy, about eleven or twelve, came to the bridge with a six year old girl. They spotted him almost immediately, and demanded to know who he was. Grudgingly, Howard explained how he and Maddie had hung the rope, built the fortress, everything.

This story was the key to the boy.

A now drunken Lewis smiled. Jess. Jesse Aarons. Leslie's friend, Terabithia's King.

His key to Leslie Burke.

Fumbling, he found the folder. Inside, there were clippings from scientific journals, and other information on alternate realities. But right now, that wasn't important. What was important was the notes he had taken from memory, notes about Leslie, her death, and Terabithia from that Jess Aarons kid. You see, Jesse's grief was still fresh, and learning about the origin of "His Kingdom" was rather healing, but he couldn't help but mention Leslie and how they found it.

The notes he knew by heart. Tonight, he was looking for a picture. A picture he had created. Finally he found it. Pulling it close to his face, he smiled.

Though the apartment was still dark, he knew what the picture was of. On the right side, there was a picture of Maddie. And taped to Maddie's photograph, was a picture of none other than:

Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke.

Lewis smiled sickly.

"Thank you Aarons." He slurred. "Thank you."

A/N: So! What did you think? I know this probably doesn't make much sense now, but it will, promise. We'll focus on Howard's invention next chapter, and then it'll get good. Review! :)