"Guys!" Brianna said. She ran over and hugged Karen. "I'm so glad to see you!" She said relieved. When she appeared in her "office" she had no idea how she got there, or where the others were.
"Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?" Chea laughed.
"Ah, Chea." Brianna went to hug her, but she tried to navigate around Cheas newly huge mid-section. "Man you are huge." She said finally managing the hug.
"Are you two busy?" Karen asked as Davy got up off the ground.
"No." Davy said tucking away the ring. "Not really."
"We need to talk." Chea said taking Brianna by the arm.
"Okay." Brianna said. "I'll be back."
"That’s ok." Davy said. "We can pick up where we left off later." He said.
"Great." Karen said. "Nice seeing you Davy."
"Oh yeah." Davy smiled. "And its so nice to see you gals getting along for a change."
The trip looked at each other. Karen opened her mouth but Davy was gone before she could object.
"Nice to see us getting along? What was that about?" Karen asked the girls.
"Who knows." Chea shrugged. "Where can we get some privacy?"
"How about my office?" Brianna said. "That sounded so cool. My office." She smiled proudly.
"All right, don't get a big head about it. Its just a room." Chea said entering the office.
"Yeah, but its mine, that makes it worth getting a big head about." Brianna said.
Karen closed the door. She looked out then closed the blinds.
"Okay, heres the story Brianna." Karen said. "Instead of sending us to our time, the gadget sent us 30 or so years into the future of the Monkees dimension."
"Oh my god." Brianna said. "And I thought I was just in the bathtub too long."
Chea laughed. "That’s nothing compared to this." She gestured at her stomach."
"What?" Brianna said. "I thought you had too much cheesecake."
Chea frowned. "Hey!" She pointed at her. "You ate the last piece by the way. I'm pregnant."
"How is that possible? How did you do that?" Brianna asked. Karen gave her a weird look. "Besides the obvious I mean." She cleared her throat. "What I mean is that wouldn’t we be post-menopausal now? I mean we're all in our fifties, our baby makings days are supposedly over."
"Beats me." Chea said. "I'm here for a doctor appointment."
"We were going there when we discovered that you worked here." Karen said.
"Then we walked in on you and Davy. The rest you know." Chea said.
"He was asking me to marry him." Brianna said. "I hadn’t given my answer when you came in."
"Oh." Karen said.
"Were you gonna say yes?" Chea asked.
"That’s not important." Karen said. "What’s important is that we get back to our own time, now."
"Why can't I stay for my doctor appointment?" Chea asked.
"You really want to stay for a ob/gyn visit?" Brianna asked.
Chea thought this over. "Let's get out of here."
"Okay. All we got to do is set this back thirty years. And press the button." Karen quickly entered the numbers and pressed the button. "Hmm." She said as nothing happened. She tried again. "Ah. Hmm." She said. She tried a third time. A sizzling sound came from the gadget, it began to get hot. Karen dropped the gadget. Sparks momentarily flew from it. It went dead. The trio looked at it for a minute before Karen picked it up again.
"Its fried." Karen said. "It looks like we're stuck here."
The girls looked at each other.
Minutes later, the hospital cafeteria
The girls sat at one of the circular tables. They had a few minutes before Chea had to go to her doctors appointment. After the failure of the device, the trio had to decide what to do.
"We have to try and get it fixed." Karen had said. "In the meanwhile we should act like we belong here."
"Like act naturally, right?" Chea had asked.
"Yeah." Brianna said. "So we don't draw any weird looks or anything."
"Okay." Chea said.
Chea finally got her broccoli sandwich. She was on her second one. She gobbled it down while Karen and Brianna looked on. She wiped her mouth with a napkin.
"What?" Chea asked.
"Nothing." Brianna said.
Someone snuck up behind Chea, and grabbed her from around the back. Chea squealed. She turned. It was Micky.
"Micky Dolenz! Don't DO that!" She said jumping up.
"I'm sorry, Mrs Dolenz." Micky fake pouted.
"All right, I forgive you." Chea said. "You always get me with that look."
"I know." He said. "Why do you think I keep doin it?" He laughed.
"What are you doing here?" Karen asked.
"I came for the appointment, remember? Karen was gonna be there in case I couldn’t be there." Micky said. "I was gonna direct another episode of Boy meets world. Turns out it was canceled. So I decided to come here." He put his hand on Cheas stomach. "I wanna make sure Dolenz number seven is ok." He said. He kissed Chea on the head. "I'll get you something to drink."
Micky went up to the front of the cafeteria and got in line for the soda fountain. Cheas eyes almost popped out.
"Dolenz number seven?" Chea asked. "Seven? I'm sure I heard that right. Did he say SEVEN?"
"Apparently." Karen said. "You've had six children, so whoever this is, its number 7."
"The real Dolenz had four girls." Chea remembered.
"You and Mick aren’t trying to repopulate the earth are you?" Brianna laughed.
"HA ha." Chea said. She shifted in her seat.
"Are you ok?" Karen asked.
"Fine. This is REALLY uncomfortable." She moaned. Micky came back with a paper cup.
"Here you go." He said handing it to her. "Dr Pepper, one ice cube."
"Just the I like it." Chea sighed. "You are just too good to me."
"I know. But you deserve it." Micky said. "It's almost time for the appointment. What are you to guys gonna do?" He asked.
"I'll wait." Karen said. Micky looked at her.
"That’s right." Brianna said. "We haven’t seen each other in a long time, and now with the baby on the way, we might see even less of each other." She said.
"Ah ok." Micky said. "Let's go, we don't want Doctor Aguilera waiting too long for us."
A half hour later
Chea and Micky came out of the elevator.
"I don't care what you think. Her hands were cold." Chea whined.
"Yeah but you didn’t have to toss that thing across the room." Micky said.
"Well, tell you what, you have a perfect stranger stick cold hands in a VERY private place, then tell me not to throw stuff." She laughed.
Karen and Brianna were waiting in front of Briannas office. Brianna had canceled all of her appointments for the day. She was now in her street clothes.
"How was the appointment?" Karen asked the duo as they approached.
"Great." Chea said. "Baby number 7 is fine."
"I'll see you at home, hon." Micky said kissing her on the cheek. "See you guys around. Don't forget that Peter and Phoebe will be over later."
"Bye Mick!" Brianna called. Karen waved.
"How do you feel?" Brianna asked.
"I feel so violated!" Chea moaned. "Her hands were cold. It was like having popsicles in you. Let's go out to the car. I don't think I'll be able to sit comfortably, though."
"Where are we going?" Brianna asked.
"Casa Dolenz, I presume." Karen said. "Till we find out what’s going on with our lives, that’s the only place we can go."
"Makes sense." Chea said.
"But wait." Brianna put her hand out. "How do we find out what’s going on?"
Chea thought about it. "I know." She said with a wide smile on her face. "Come on, I'll show you." She said heading to the car. Brianna looked at Karen. She shrugged. They then quickly followed Chea to the limo waiting outside.
Casa Dolenz
A few minutes later the trio arrived at Cheas place. They looked out the window as they pulled into the driveway.
"Wow." Chea said. They got out at the front door. They walked in, slowly, in awe of the building. Cheas mansion was huge. There had to be at least 5 or six bedrooms. The kitchen was large and expansive. The living room was even bigger, with a cool entertainment center in the middle of it.
"I love this house!" Chea said. She was about to pop a DVD into the player when Karen spoke up.
"Weren't you gonna show us something?" Karen reminded her.
"Oh yeah." Chea said. "Come in here." She seemingly knew her whole way around the place. "This is exactly what I would have wanted my dream house to look like." She said as they were brought into a library like room. She looked for a minute then went "aha!" and found what she was looking for.
"In real life Micky wrote an auto-biography." Chea said. "I knew my Micky would do that too." She said as she flipped through the book. "Sit down girls. We are about to have a history lesson."
She started to read the book. "You won't believe me when I say this, but its true. A few months after the band got started, we got a blessing from god, and I don't mean our big break either. A wonderful gadget brought these two girls from another dimension. It brought Karen Galloway to Mike, and it brought me the love of my life, Chea Thomas. Soon after it brought Davy Brianna Lewis."
We've had many wonderful adventures with the gadget. A year or so after our fun began with the girls, Karen and Mike got married." She looked at Karen. "A year or so after that Chea and I tied the knot. Davy and Brianna have never married." Chea read looking at Brianna. "Every year he goes to her with a ring. The same ring. Every year she turns him down. She decided to put her medical career first."
Chea read more, when the Monkees big break came in the 1970's, it wasn’t for the band, but for the girls. The girls were singing at a Halloween party when they were discovered by a television series producer. The girls were singing as a joke, but they were really good. They wanted the girls in their own series. Karen readily accepted the series on behalf of the girls, causing a rift between her and Mike. They became very bitter to each other. They soon split. Brianna couldn’t take it anymore and refocused her energies on her medical career. A year later Chea and Mickys third kid was born. Peter used the time gadget for the last time and got Phoebe from Friends world.
Chea looked up as she was summing stuff up. "That must be what Micky meant. Peter and Phoebe got married, it says here in 1976."
"Neat." Karen said. "At least someones a couple."
"Karen..."
"And look here, it says my name is Karen Galloway-Nesmith." She said. "I never liked women who put hyphens in their names! And now I'm one of them."
"Read on Chea." Brianna said.
"Okay. It's been a year after the big anniversary." She said. "Mike is in Arizona. Micky still sings, Peter does too. Davy is taking a break from his horse racing." She said.
"It's my fault." Karen said. "It's my fault the gang split up. According to this, most of the stuff that happens in the real world never happened here. No albums in the 80's or 90's. When Davy said he was glad to see us getting along. It says here..." She flipped a page. "..that you two were mad at me for a long time."
"Yeah." Brianna said. "I could see how that might happen."
"I wonder why no one ever thought of using the gadget to go back in time to fix that." Chea asked.
"Probably at that point we just didn't use it anymore." Karen said. She got a hard look on her face. "I know now what we must do."
"What?" Brianna asked.
"We must get the guys back together." Karen said. She looked at Chea and Brianna. "If we're gonna be stuck here, then we're gonna make a difference."
Chea nodded in silent agreement.
"But how?" Brianna asked.
"We'll think of something." Chea said.
Karen smiled at Chea. Chea closed the book. "We might need this." She said as they walked out of the room.
"Chea!" She heard her name and turned. "Hey!" Chea said. "How are you?" She looked around. "Where are you?"
"In here." The voice said. Chea followed the sound into the other room.
"Oh my god!" She said as a smile crossed her face.
