Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 15:59:19 EDT
From: J
Subject: WILL AND BARRY 2: ALAS MY LOVE

LOST IN SPACE and LAND OF THE GIANTS are trademarks of Irwin Allen
Productions.

THE ADVENTURES OF WILL AND BARRY:
"ALAS MY LOVE!"

At first it seemed a planet like no other. Ponds, lakes, streams, rivers,
oceans, woodlands, mountains, and nothing dangerous in the least, bar a
few ticklands. Barry was on his knees and sobbing. Presently he would sob
so strongly that his body would tip over and he'd have to put his hands
out to keep from falling. He cast aside his yellow sweater, his button
down shirt flaps flapping in the gentle wind. He had no shirt on beneath
and his muscled rippled as he sank into despair. Will Robinson, his only
anchor in the universe, any universe, was gone. No more Will, no more
Space Pod. Just like that. It seemed so normal a planet until...those
time rifts cascaded across the landscape. Changing things, moving things,
making parts of the planet become older and younger, sometimes at the
same time. The planet was standing up against the rifts which made Will
wonder if it were a normal planet at all. It should have been crumbling
under the effects. Will had been fishing when the rifts struck. Barry
hated fishing but knew they needed to do something. They didn't really
need to fish of course, not since the Tall Strange Alien Man----the
Server---Barry liked to think of him as the Savior---has serviced the Pod
and added numerous devices---including a food device---but Will, being
Will, had to do something. Why couldn't he just relax like everyone else.
He was always on the move. Always exploring some new area of space and
time or off collecting specimens. Barry couldn't blame him.

He couldn't blame them either. Will was in the Space Pod. He had seen
Barry at the lake, throwing rocks into it, sullenly, angry probably that
Will was fishing when he hadn't needed to. That was when the time rifts
hit. Flying the Pod in the new shiny chairs the Alien Man had made out of
---what exactly? Number chanting? Block transfer computation.
Amazing....Will was in the chair and he looked at the chair that usually
held Barry. He was fishing and the Pod wasn't far from him. When he saw
the ripple effect of the rift, he made for the Pod, figuring he would fly
it right to Barry and pick him up. It was then the landscape changed and
Barry was not there when it did refocus. Will swallowed.

Barry couldn't blame them. Will couldn't blame them. Adults make
mistakes. Times were mixed up. Messages were misunderstood. Everyone left
him. He was totally alone. The soccer practice ended early and he was
waiting at the new school where practice had just been moved to. They had
moved to this house in San Gabriel Valley. So there were many "news"
involved. That didn't make an 8 year old comfortable. It was early
afternoon when the practice ended and by the time he saw his parents
again it was dark outside and nine o'clock at night. He was wracked with
fear and sobbing just like he was now.

Barry felt, as he flew the Space Pod, Will having taught him how (oh,
those were fun lessons! Barry thought with Will standing behind him over
the levers--before the chairs were put in--standing so close---and
putting his hands over mine, Barry reflected), that he had abandoned Will
somehow. He had to find him even if it meant flying through thousands of
time rifts and time zones. The planet below, through the Pod's view
screens, held a city full of people, teeming with activity. Then a new
rift, it's blue waves just giving seconds notice, shook the Pod and the
city was blank, empty. It was as if some weapon had been dropped which
killed all the people or made them vanish, leaving only the buildings
standing. Which is exactly what did happen. Will had to be nearby. He had
been fishing...no, that can't be right, Will, no Barry thought. I hate
fishing. Don't I? Was I green skinned once? "What's happening to us?" 

Will was his knees. Adults, even parents make mistakes. Fuck that! They
left him! They LEFT HIM! If it weren't for the kindness of a teenager
girl who lived in this area, he'd still be out there in the dark crying
and fearful to go to anyone's house for help. He was taught not to trust
anyone...not to go into anyone home...he did go to a few houses for
help, across that street from the school but no one was home. He stayed
on the monkey bars at the sandbox near the school. The sun went down. Mr
and Mrs Robinson, Lockridge....the perfect couple, always on time. They
didn't care enough to wonder where he was, wonder what he was doing, or
if he was okay. Good thing that teen girl cared enough to figure out what
to do. She wouldn't be allowed to take him into her house. Oh no, Barry
resisted that. The girl got the phone number from information...I
couldn't remember it. I did remember my name. Robinson. Lockridge. Unlike
now, I could recall what my last name was.

I hated them for leaving me. Now they're gone. Now they're dead. Been
dead since 1982. Those bastards. Where in this multi verse of
universes--does that make sense? Are they? Where and when would he
see...no, he wouldn't see them again. Not for a very, very long time. If
they were dead, he'd have to die. He wanted to die. For he was totally
alone now. No Will Robinson. He had been abandoned by the red haired
muscle bound space boy. When he died, he hoped to see his parents again.
Finding them in this lost universes of time and space again, what would
happen when he and Barry found their respective friends and family? They
would have to part. NO! He didn't want that. He couldn't. Will had been
his anchor for so long now. He knew when he first saw Will that he had
fallen in love. He knew Will knew that too. Barry thought, "I think it
took him longer for him to love me. But I think he does." The fuck! Now
he left me too.

Barry sunk to his knees and collapsed onto his stomach, his legs
spreading out beneath him. He cried and cried. The planet kept changing
beneath him. The edibles around him withered and died, it got dark,
light, sun went up and down, the grass became dirt, the dirt became
weeds, the jungle changed, the woodlands thinned out. Past, present,
future. The boy cared for none of it. He stayed on the ground and would
until he died. That was the only way out of this. He flew the Space Pod.
He had to find Will. Will was alone on a changing planet. Will shook his
head. No, I'm Will Robinson.

"Hurry! You have to find him. He won't be able to stand the next waves of
this time eddy. It will be...more potent. Find him! I am linking you
both!"

"Thank you but how?" Will asked from the Space Pod, "And...and who are
you?"

"I am the planet's life force. No, do not worry yourself over that. Find
him! He needs you!"

"And I need him!" Will yelled, "But where?"

"There!"

A hole opened in the blue time rifts and Will saw a boy struggling with
his own sobbing on the grass. Red time rifts were growing behind Barry.
"I won't leave you!" Will shot the Pod ahead. It vanished.

Barry thought he heard the Space Pod and looked up and saw nothing. The
sky turned blue, then red with fire, then pink, then dark as night, no
stars, stars, comets, meteorites. Plane like devices. Missiles. He shut
his eyes and cried some more. It was a long time since he cried. He
doesn't remember how long. Way before he came to the Land of the Giants.
Oh no, there was that time he cried when Chipper became a giant dog for a
time...at that time he cried, he thought that Chipper was lost forever.
Chipper...he wondered about the tiny dog. He knew Valerie, Betty, and Mr.
Fitzhugh and the others would all take care of the dog he loved so much.
He wished the dog could be with him now. This just made him cry some
more. He knew the dog would miss him, think he was abandoning him. He
hadn't on purpose. This gave him some resolve, perhaps Will had no choice
either. Save the Pod. Not Barry. Barry snapped back into his fit of pity
and began to cry again. There was no one else. Just when he thought he
had found the love of his life, the person he cared about most...truth
was he was conflicted about finding the rest of the gang from Spindrift,
for it might mean making a choice between leaving Will or his friends.
Powerless adults. They, like his parents, abandoned him. Of course, his
parents did so by dying. Was it as the same time? A car crash off the
Marine base? Or did mom die first and then dad? The other way around?
What difference did it make? They were both gone. Shifted from an
orphanage to another for about a year or so and then to distant relatives
which he never made it to...the land of the giants space warp saw to
that. Now he was here. Pathetic. He was alone. No one cared. No one was
powerful enough to find him and no one would. He'd just be here...one
little lost soul in the multi verses that no one thought enough about to
help, to save, or had the power to...he'd just wither and die like an old
man when the red time rifts caught up to him for he knew instinctively
they would make him either very very old or very very young...an embryo
which he wished now would never had made it to term...he was in a dark
place, darkness and despair... his salvation....

The Space Pod tore out of a cloud and a time rift and soared overhead!
"Barry!"

Barry looked up and through watery eyes saw the Pod flying out, down at
him. Will looked up, "Mom! Look!"

"There they are!" Barry called.

"Will!"

"Hang on! I'm coming down!" Will took the Pod straight down to Barry,
watching as the boy's hot body grew in size at the window as he got
closer and closer. The Space Pod bumped to a halt and the door flew open.
"Hurry up, get inside!" Will saw himself at the Pod doorway. Barry saw
himself from the Pod doorway but stumbled getting to it. Will was Barry.
Barry was Will. 
"You came back," Barry said as he tried to pull himself up but the
crying took a lot of energy out of him. He fell again and tried to pull
himself up, his arms reaching down and pushing. A red time eddy came and
caught his foot. It suddenly felt smaller.

"You must hurry, it has part of him...!" The planet's voice called, "Get
him!"

Will didn't have to be told. He was already running to Barry, not that he
had far to go. He had landed almost right in front of the olive skinned
curly haired, fresh faced Canadian American boy. Will grabbed Barry's
arm, "C'mon, kiddo!"

Barry's foot exited the red time rift.

The planet soul, "I can hold it back a few seconds!"

It was the foot of a baby, in a giant shoe. Giants, always giants. Barry
thought. As Will pulled, another rift came. A blue one from the other
side. Will saw it rise like a giant tidal wave in an old movie called THE
POSEIDON ADVENTURE.... "Ooh no!"

The red wave engulfed Barry but the blue wave hit Will and Barry and
washed the red out a bit. Barry's foot filled his shoe again. Will pulled
Barry into the Space Pod. He hurled Barry into the chair and took off as
fast as he could. The blue and red rift fought again for control and
blasts occurred, buffeting the Space Pod. Will shoot the Pod into space.
The planet seemed to glimmer and grow bright, then drew off from the
light and glow only in the center, finally dimming into nothingness.
Where the planet once hung in space, was nothingness. A black hole. No
light, no stars. The Pod flew away from this mess. Will put it on auto
and turned to Barry, getting out of his chair, "Let me look at you!"
Will looked him over, "You're okay!"

"Sure," Barry said, tiredly, "You came back for me."

"Sure! Of course I did, what did you think?" Will smiled and put his
hands on his hips.
Weak, Barry rose up and hugged Will, putting his arms around the boy's
sides and squeezing tight. Will made a sound like "UMFFFFFFFFFHUMPFFF!"

"I am sorry I doubted it," Barry said.

Will smiled and broke them apart but put his hands on Barry's cheeks,
"You don't have to explain. I know what you feel. We're linked. Not just
because of the planet either....I love you.. I can't explain that either
but I do. I just know I do. It just...it just sorta happened. And hey..."

"What?"

"I think the time thingie made you a few years younger than you were..."
Will looked down. "And that...too, it's from a time when..."

"Oh that, that's just from the danger of it all...and maybe from seeing
you again..."

"It's big! A giant!"

"That's nothing. It's not even erect."

"Let's find out how big it would be when it is..."

Barry blushed.