Title: The Doors that Vanished

Author: LLE

Email: saturnchild@hotmail.com

Rating: PG-13 to R

Author's Notes: I wanted to try to write a story where the McPalace actually had the structure that's portayed in the show (read; only one door to the bathroom). So here it is, hope you like it.

The noise of the alarm woke the blonde laying in the bed, making her groan and stretch her long, lean body until her shoulders gave a slight, satisfying pop. Mumbling lowly and glaring angrily at the evil device that had dared interrupt her dream, the girl rolled out of bed, picking up her clothes from the nearby chair and heading for the bathroom with her head bowed tiredly.

Now, had she raised her head and looked the world in the face for a few minutes, she probably wouldn’t have walked smack-dab into the wall.

“Ow!” Brooke staggered back a few steps, grabbing her forehead, which had taken the brunt of the blow. “Weird,” she muttered, poking experimentally at the solid brick in front of her. “I could’ve sworn there was a door here…”

Meanwhile, two rooms down the hall…

Sam groaned and reluctantly rose from her bed, padding across the room with her eyes screwed shut against the morning sun. Reaching out with her hand, she fumbled for the door handle, frowning slightly at the amount of time she spent looking for it. The brunette sighed and cracked one eye open, the other one opening and widening at alarming speed.

“What the…” The brunette cocked her head thoughtfully and ran the palm of her hand over the smooth surface that had mysteriously replaced her door. Twin eyebrows rose, and then two shoulders followed in a remarkably careless shrug. “Ah, what the hell. Things change.”

A knock came at the door, and Sam ambled over to open it, finding a very confused looking blonde standing in the hall.

“Let me guess,” the brunette quirked an eyebrow at the older girl, “you noticed the conspicuously quick remodeling of our rooms as well?”

“You could say that”, Brooke nodded and rubbed her reddening forehead. “I got to know it up close and personal, actually.”

Sam sniggered and stepped back, waving the blonde inside and walking back to the wall. “This is kinda weirding me out,” she confessed, tapping the solid wall lightly. “I distinctly remember there being a wood-covered opening in this wall last night.”

“Me too,” Brooke raised her hand and pushed at the wall, her efforts being completely fruitless, of course, as the solid brick refused to budge. “How can both our doors just have vanished over night? Without making the slightest noise, none the less?”

A round of giggles made the girls turn around, and the two of them saw no less than three people, two young women and a young man, reclining happily on Sam’s bed.

Suddenly, Sam yelped and ducked behind the cheerleader, pointing an accusing finger at the short-haired woman. “You stay away from me!”

“Sammy, what are you doing?” Brooke gave her brunette housemate a very bewildered look, but received no reply. Sam was apparently too busy staring at the floor and shivering all over while muttering something that sounded vaguely like ‘Samabusage’ ™.

The woman laughed. “Take it easy, Sam, I’m not here to hurt you. Hell, I don’t even write about the two of you anymore,” she shrugged. (HINT! Don’t make me use the two-by-four!)

“Good, keep it that way,” Sam growled, glowering at the intruder. “I get enough flack from Nicole without your help, Aeryn.”

Brooke’s eyes widened in recognition. “Ohmigod, you’re Aeryn?!” Getting a positive response, the blonde’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “In that case, we need to have a little talk, missy. What’s this stuff about me wrapping my car around a tree, huh?”

Aeryn held up her hands defensively. “Hey, calm down, Blondie. You got Sam in the end, didn’t you?”

Brooke paused and thought for a minute before letting a dreamy look overtake her face. “Yeah…”

Sam glanced at the blonde and looked seriously rattled for a second, but shook it off and turned her eyes to the young man, who was fiddling with his glasses. “And who might you be?”

The young man blinked and smiled. “I’m Jos. Nice to meet you in person, as it were.”

“I know you,” Brooke spoke up, having snapped out of her dreamy haze. “I liked the story you did with that Sylph in it.”

“You only liked that because you got to have magic powers,” Sam snorted.

“You liked it too, and you had far more power than I did,” Brooke stuck out her tongue and looked seriously disturbed as all of the three newcomers each whipped out a notepad and started scribbling. “Stop that!”

Jos and Aeryn had the good grace to look just a little chagrined, while the second young woman merely grinned and eyed Sam, who ducked further behind the cheerleader.

Aeryn reached over and gave the other brunette a slightly shove. “Pack the wolf-look away, Love. Can’t you see you’re freaking the girl out?”

“Hey, I’m not doing anything wrong,” Love shrugged, holding up her notepad, “just taking notes here.”

Brooke, in the meantime, had retreated into her dream world again upon hearing the second woman’s name. “Mmm, Diving In…”

“Brooke,” Sam rose to her feet and, after giving the long-haired brunette a nervous look, turned her back on the newcomers and shook the blonde. “Hey, snap out of it.”

“Lord Sam turned her chocolate eyes on Lady Brooke, and saw that her love had been struck by the hypno-venom of the terrible Bl’nde Cheerl’d’rs….” Jos muttered, nodding to himself as he wrote.

“Hey,” Aeryn tapped the young man on the shoulder, “could the venom be some sort of female Viagra?”

“Cut it out!” Sam yelled, spinning around and facing the smirking writers. “What’s wrong with you people? Brooke and I are NOT in a relationship, ok? We’re not even friends for Chrissakes!”

“Ever hear of the phrase ‘there’s a thin line between love and hate’?” Love questioned, grinning cheekily as Sam produced a very tongue-tied look.

“Oo, she got you there, Sammy-girl,” Aeryn grinned, turning to Jos. “Remember the story Janine wrote?”

“Certainly,” Jos nodded, “One of the best ones written so far, in my opinion.”

“I don’t believe this,” Sam muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “First we loose our doors, and then you three show up and throw Brooke into this far off fantasy haze that looks disturbingly sexual…” The brunette trailed off and raised her eyes to the heavens, “I just wanna know why my door left!”

“Oh, we can tell you that,” Jos said, making Sam’s head snap back so fast that Aeryn wrote the word ‘whiplash’ on her notepad. “See, when Popular slash was just starting out, a writer named Janine put the interconnecting bathroom into one of her stories. It turned out to be such an efficient prop-device for getting you and Brooke together that everyone adopted it, and forgot that there actually was only one door in the show.” He smiled and pushed his glasses up. “You can say it became standard for the writers.”

“Okaaay…” Sam drew the word out as long as she could, giving the three writers a disbelieving look. “Then if that’s why we had those doors, why did they disappear?”

“One of the writers probably decided to axe the two doors and follow the canon of the show a little better,” Love shrugged, “at least for a while.”

“Yeah, we’re just props ourselves,” Aeryn spoke up, indicating herself, Jos and Love with one hand. “A helping hand, if you will.”

“Helping us do what, exactly?”

“I think I know, Sammy,” Brooke purred, coming back to reality and wrapping her arms around the brunette’s waist from behind, gently stroking Sam’s abdomen.

“Uh…” Sam stuttered slightly, her usually stellar vocabulary failing her at the moment. “Brooke, what are you doing?”

“Giving in,” Brooke nuzzled Sam’s neck and smiled as she felt the brunette shiver and lean back into her.

“But there are people here,” Sam said in a loud stage-whisper.

“Well, then I suggest we go check out the new bathroom.” Brooke placed a light kiss on the side of Sam’s neck and pulled away, giving the reporter an expectant look.

Sam’s face broke out in a full-fledged grin, and she grabbed the blonde’s hand and pulled her towards the door. “That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.”

“Seeing as it’s 7:15 on a Thursday morning, that’s not really saying a whole lot,” Brooke grinned, then stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh no, we have school today.”

“So we’ll skip,” Sam tugged insistently at the blonde’s arm, avoiding the eyes of the avidly watching visitors.

“We can’t,” Brooke sighed dejectedly, “Chem quiz, remember?”

“No, you don’t, that was two days ago,” Aeryn held up her note pad, which proudly displayed the following:

Chem quiz of Thursday over and done with, Brooke and Sam both got A’s.

Friday passes, turning to Saturday. Rentals and Mac are away someplace.

“You can do that?” Brooke asked in wonder.

“Sure, as soon as a sentence is incorporated into a story, it becomes the reality of the tale,” Love smiled and waggled her fingers at the two teenagers. “Have fun.”

Brooke and Sam grinned and quickly disappeared out of the door. Seconds later, various sounds of pleasure could be heard through the wall.

“You better be taking notes, Love,” Aeryn gave the other brunette a look. “I want to see some more of your one-shots, and soon.”

-END

Thanks for reading.