The drive home had been lovely. Julienne on a whim had decided to go to Tiny Hat Burger, only to find that someone had done that thing where you pay for the person behind you. But with a gift card. There had been a temptation to get the caramel malt, but who knew how big the donation was. So, instead, she just got the mushroom swiss chicken burger with some onion rings. A great bit of comfort food before she got home.

The drive home wasn’t far at all. It was always shocking how the area went from super nice to run down and beat up. Of course, all the shops around her clinic until you got to the Tiny Hat were all targeted for the rich. She couldn’t even afford to eat anywhere except the burger place if she forgot to bring lunch. Even the closest ‘Mexican” restaurant ran at forty dollars a plate. Of course, she mentally always put quotes around that in her mind. 

Burrito Chime was more authentic than that place.

And everyone agreed it didn’t count as tex-mex. It was it’s own category of ‘I just want something to eat at 2am and no one cares’ food. 

However, none of that mattered. Julienne was already at her apartment as she thought about all of this. She shoved the food in her bag, grabbed her drink and started up the stairs two at a time. The top floor apartment was the cheapest one. There was no elevator, four flights of stairs, and there had been a murder in it. So a lot of people believed it was haunted. Julienne was reasonably certain it was not haunted.

If nothing else, it wasn’t haunted anymore.

Not since she asked some wiccans she knew to come and do a cleansing. You know. Just in case.

This was the mindset that was making it hard for Julienne to completely dismiss the time travel thing. Julienne had a belief that there was more in this world than anyone could understand or know. That the world of belief and faith had something to them. They just required more scientific study to better understand why they worked as they did. She did her thesis on the scientific principles behind faith and belief being able to heal or harm. Going into how it affected everything from mood, to client perception, to just the simple relief of brain chemicals.

Her school barely passed it. A sticking point to the judges was how she insisted some benefit of the doubt, while keeping in mind clinical diagnosis criteria, needed to be given to clients. One of the judges had been a former professor who had just… sighed and shaken his head. Like he knew where she was going to go with the paper.

But barely passed was still a pass. Which meant she had a way to pay the lifetime of student loans. Jullienne carefully unlocked her door and walked in. 

“Hey baby, Mommy’s home!” She called out, walking towards the lit up living room. Taking a sip of her Dr Chilli as she set down her bag. “Hopefully you had a good day today.”

Julienne walked over to the tank, bending over slightly. The hognose snake slowly poked its head up from under a rock and started licking the air. Little Cowboy’s way of saying hello.  She blew a kiss at the tank as she set down her drink. 

“Sweetie. Lemme tell you, Mama has had a weird day today. So if you have any way to help with that? It’d be amazing.”

Cowboy just gave another soft hiss as he moved towards the side of the tank the drink was near, seemingly annoyed that he couldn’t access it. He didn’t get that curious about possible food unless it was almost time for a meal. She briskly walked over to the kitchen and pulled out a quail egg and one frozen mouse, setting them on the counter to start warming to room temp. You didn’t want these things too cold after all.

“Cowboy, you’re eating good today! Let me tell you. My friend has a quail that is laying like crazy. I might get to eat a few too.” She grinned, starting to pull out her food as her cell rang. The sticker covered case  of the phone started sliding across the counter from the vibrations.

She could ignore it.

Pretend it was on silent.

Offer condol-

Wait. She told Hannah to call. What if she snapped out of whatever it was earlier? Depending where she was, if there was memory loss, or if she had gotten the guts to yell at her family and switched midway though…

Oh it could be bad. 

Julienne quickly picked up, ignoring the food. “Dr. Fry speaking, how can I help you?”

If nothing else, if it turned out to be a telemarketer they’d think they called a clinic.

“Hi uh, Hi Dr Fry.” Hannah’s still less nervous than normal voice came through. “I am in some trouble and thought you could help.” 

There was the sound of some crinkling in the background. Not to mention the sound of Hannah eating something. Normally eating on the phone annoyed the hell out of Julienne. But in this case? Good on Hannah! She hoped it was something tasty.

“I’ll do what I can. Do we need an emergency session? I can set up a virtual one.” she asked as she started getting her food out. Maybe they could both eat on camera.

The words quickly tumbled out of Hannah’s mouth over the phone. “Big brother called and he saw a video because I went to Tiny Hat to get something to eat and some of those super cute hats and then he went and saw a video that got posted in me in my therapy outfit because I didn’t change my clothes and he thought I bought the store but I didn’t buy the store I just left a big gift card and he’s super suspicious I’m on drugs so I was wondering if you could prescribe me something so it just looks like I’m taking something but I’m not.”

Julienne shook her head trying to process all the words that came out in that order. Gift card? Tiny hat? Well. Now she knew who gave her the free dinner. Before she bit into her onion ring, Jullienne processed the last part of the deluge of information.

“You want me… to give you pills?”

“I mean. Yes and no. He was ready to see if I needed to go to a um… long term clinic. Maybe a detox place? But my mints fell out and he heard. So…”

Jullienne sighed, setting down the onion ring. Her food was going to get cold today. Damnit. “So you told him you were on a new medication.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you into that.” came the remorseful reply. “I just… they tried so many times to get me locked up.”

“In the future or the past?”

There was a pause. “To be fair, I don’t know about the past. But future, yeah. Beauregard always acted like he was doing me a favor when he tried.”

Well, that was some different insight on her oldest brother. While Hannah had always been quick to defend her brothers, this new version was just as quick to say what terrible things they had been doing. But in both versions, Beauregard was someone who was trying to ‘do a favor’ for Hannah. She’d make note of that after untangling this mess.

“Right. Ok. Well what were the details of what you told him, do you remember?” She hoped it was believable.

“I told him you gave me something in the office and it worked well. Really well. And you had a prescription for me at the pharmacy.” There was a slight pause. “Oh and the medication had to be taken with regular pills so no more dieting.”

No. Of course it wasn’t believable. No medication worked that quickly. Most took a few days. The only thing that she would have given in her office would be… Would be something that clever older brother might suspect but wouldn’t spill the beans on. If he wasn’t actually as awful as Hannah made the rest out to be. If he was the older brother who was just following Mommy Dearest’s orders. 

“I can give you sugar pills. That’s all I have in the office.”

Hannah’s munching stopped in the background. “No. You had real pills in the office. I remember. You gave them to me in year five to help stop my tremors. You said it was an amazing pill just off the market.”

“Were they little purple and brown ones?”

“I um. Yeah.”

“Those are my placebos. The clinic lets us hand them out if a patient needs the magic slipper effect for stressful situations.” She smiled, remembering getting her pharmacy friend to help pick them out. “I use a code word and the pharmacy on Grant and 5th dispenses them to my clients.”

“You gave me fake pills? You lied about what they were?” Hannah almost sounded offended. Or maybe she was just shocked. It was hard to tell as she ate the fries.

“Apparently I did in the future and will now prescribe them. So. Go to the pharmacy there, they’ll charge you five bucks, and you’ll get a three month supply. And there is a bonus to them being that color combo.”

Hannah sighed. “What’s that?”

“If you are right about your family? They won’t be able to change out the pills for fakes easily. There aren’t any pills on the market that use that color combo in the mental health area. And if you suspect they are fakes, let me know and I can get your more without a problem.”

Julienne pinned the phone between her shoulder and ear as she got out her laptop. It would only take a moment on her work laptop to place the pharmacy order with the code word. As she typed away, she could hear the soft munching of the fries on the other end.

Just power through the noise, Julienne.

“What if Beauregard knows it’s fake?” Hannah asked. “His wife is a nurse. She might know what the term means.”

“Then that’s going to be your first test on how deep he is in on the plans won’t it? If he knows but thinks it’s helping you, he’ll behave differently depending on what his goals are.” Julienne wondered if Hannah could hear just how fast she was typing to submit the order. “For example, if he wants to mess with your mental health he may tell you they are sugar pills. He may try to forbid you from taking them as well.”

“And… if he encourages me to take them?” She sighed. “Should I assume he is going to replace them?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it means he is a caring brother who just listens to the wrong people.” Julienne hit send and watched as the confirmation went through. “Ok it’s done. Go get your fake pills. Corner of Grant and 5th.”

“Right. Thanks Dr Fry.” And with that, she could eat her now slightly cold and soggy onion rings, and her cooled off chicken burger.

Oh well. No one got fast food expecting it to be five stars anyway.