Ted gaped at the young woman standing in the door frame. She was small, slender, and dressed only in panties and a bra; he couldn't imagine how she had overpowered her apparently male kidnapper. Though, he reminded himself, the person he was looking at was probably not actually the girl she appeared to be; for all Ted knew this girl was really champion weightlifter. In any case, however she had managed to overcome her captor, she had done it; the evidence was in the bound and unconscious body of the young woman lying on the floor behind her.
Suddenly the woman--who had seemed young and spry and just a little proud of herself when she'd stepped from the room, slumped over. She still looked eighteen, but it was like she'd suddenly become eighty years old. It was in her body language: the sag of her shoulders, the curve of her back, the weariness in her face. Either fighting her captor had taken everything out of this girl that she had in her, or she had just this moment been switched with someone else... though how she could have gotten through her ordeal without having already switched, Ted couldn't comprehend.
"Oh my," the woman said, looking down at herself in shock as though she'd just noticed her scanty attire for the first time... something that lent further suport to the idea that this woman wasn't the person who had come out of the room a moment before. The woman hobbled slowly back in the room, and the door slammed abruptly shut in Ted's face.
Ted hesitated, rather taken aback by the woman's behavior; then he knocked on the door. "Just a minute!" an unsteady voice yelled back. A moment passed, then the door opened again, and the woman stepped out, dressed now in a knee-length robe. "May I help you, young lady?" she asked.
Ted wasn't sure what to make of this woman. She didn't seem to think anything was strange about the fact that she'd suddenly found herself in an unfamiliar room, or that there was a woman lying unconcsious on the floor; now that she was dressed a little more adequately, she didn't seem to have a care in the world. "Um," Ted said, feeling a little awkward, "I need to grab that woman down there."
The woman in the robe looked down at the woman--the man?--the person who had been her captor just a moment before and cried, "Oh dear, I think she's passed out. Someone call a nurse!"
"I'm afraid there aren't any nurses around, ma'am," Ted said, leaning over and inspecting the body on the ground.
"It she alive?" the woman asked nervously.
Ted felt for a pulse. "Yeah, she's alive. She has a nasty blow to the head, but I think she'll be fine when she wakes up."
"Oh dear," the woman muttered. "Where are the nurses when we need them? I'll have to talk to management as soon as I can; there's no excuse for the home to not have nurses on duty."
Ted was beginning to piece together an idea of who this woman was. She seemed to be an older person, probably a woman, and she apparently believed she was still in her nusing home, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Ted wondered if the woman had a mild case of dementia; it would explain some of her improbable behavior... and in a way, if this were indeed the case, Ted envied her. Senility might lessen the shock of finding herself in another woman's body. Ther was still the nagging question, though... if this was an elderly woman, who had been in this body before? It definitely wasn't an old woman who had taken down the woman lying still beneath Ted's arms, so there must have been someone else in this body. But if it had been the body's original owner who had beaten up the kidnapper and died him up, then how had she done so without swapping? Ted was beginning to suspect there was a piece to this puzzle than he was seeing.
He tried to lift the body of the woman on the floor, but he couldn't quite manage it; he was a bit out of shape, and this woman was much heavier than she appeared to be. Despite what she looked like, was she actually as heavy as the man she really was? Had Ted somehow inherited the strength of the woman he had become? Or was it both, or something between the two? It hurt his head to think aboutit, so he didn't. Instead, he looked up at the woman who had led him here and said, "Call the police. Tell them there was a hostage situation that's been resolved, and Ted Stark has the perpetrator. Have them meet me outside the building to pick him up." Then, turning back to the others, he asked, "Has any of you switched, or are you all in your original bodies?"
They all looked at one another, then muttered that they had not switched.
"All right," Ted said. "You." He indicated the guy who had called him 'Michelle'. "Go out and find me someone who has switched. Tons of people have switched already; you shouldn't have to look too far. Make sure it's someone who's really an adult, not just someone who looks like one. Preferably a man. I need someone to help me carry this guy outside, but it can't be any of you, because as soon as you touch this guy, you're going to switch, too. Oh," Ted added, "And don't touch anyone on the way."
The guy looked more than a little confused, but he nodded and started down the hall. Then stopping and turning, he asked, "Callie's gonna be okay, right?"
"I hope so," Ted said.
The guy frowned, then turned and continued down the hall.
He returned a few minutes later with a skinny young man with dreadlocks and a Bob Marley t-shirt. Ted rose to his feet and nodded at the new man. "Think you can help me carry ths person?"
"I was a dock worker before all of this happened," the guy with dreads said, looking down at the woman on the ground. "I think I can manage"
"Great," Ted said, and together they lifted the woman's body and carried her downstairs.
When they'd reached the front door and laid the kidnapper in the grass, Ted turned to the man who had helped him carry the body. "Thanks, man." he said. "I think I've got it from here; you can head out if you'd like." He pointed to the young man who'd called him Michelle. "You. Stay."
As the dock worker ran off, Ted and his companion settled into the grass. While they were waiting, Ted pumped his companion for some information about his new form. Michelle Fleming, he learned, was a third-year history student from Rhode Island, as well as a cheerleader and a proud member of the Delta Zeta Phi sorority. Her parents actually sounded like they were big mucky-mucks in the insurance industry or something; why she had come here instead of going to Harvard or something, Ted couldn't imagine. And the young man sitting with him--Ryan--was not just a friend of Michelle, but her boyfriend. That made the wait for the police much more awkward.
At last, though, they showed up. Ted saw Eric Sidler walking around the building from the direction of the parking lot, along with a young girl around ten years old. The girl was wearng street clothes, but she had a badge attached to her t-shirt. As they approached, they looked down at the body in the grass, then at Ryan. "Ted? Is that you?" Sidler asked Ryan.
"No, uh," Ted said, raising his hand and blushing. "Over here."
Sidler looked at Ted in surprise for a moment... then he burst out laughing. The girl was a bit more restrained, but she did grin and say, "Nice outfit, Ted."
"Thanks," Ted grumbled. "Um... who are you again?"
"It's Danielle," the girl said. "Danielle Chase."
Danielle Chase. Wow. Ted had had a crush on Danielle Chase for ages, since he had first joined the police force and the two of them had gone through training together. She was a beautiful and charming woman, and miraculously, like Ted, she was single. Danielle had always said that she was too busy with work to date anyone, but Ted suspected there was more to it; Danielle had never spoken much about her past, and she seemed particularly reluctant to discuss her former boyfriends. Nevertheless, despite the aura of mystery around her, Danielle was a lovely and upbeat woman, and Ted had always been drawn to her. His blush grew deeper as she looked at him with the gorgeous grin that he still recognized, even though it was on a little girl's face now; Ted was just glad that she saw Michelle when she looked at him, and not himself.
"Well, uh, come on," Ted said. "We'd better get this guy to the car, if you brought one. I don't know how long she'll--er, he'll---stay unconscious."
"Probably right," Sidler said, wiping a tear from his eye and trying to halt his laughing. He took a pair of handcuffs from his belt and handed them to Danielle. "Do the honors?"
"Gladly," Danielle said, leaning down and clapping the handcuffs over the kidnapper's wrists. After that she tried to undo the knots around the kidnapper's wrists. "Jeeze, Ted," she said as she finally gave up, "I think you tied her up tight enough."
"Actually, that was his captive who did that," Ted said. "She saved herself; I'm just doing mop-up."
"Wow," Danielle said, getting to her feet. "Pretty impressive."
The three police officers looked down at the body. "Well," Sidler said, "I probably can't touch her, so I can't help carry her to the car. What about him?" He indicated Ryan.
"Nope," Ted said. "He hasn't switched yet, either."
"Guess it's up to you, then, ladies." Sidler grinned as he put special emphasis on this last word, which made Ted scowl at him.
Together, Ted and Danielle lifted the young woman's body and carried it out to the parking lot. It wasn't easy, but they managed after a few minutes. Once the woman was secured in the police car, Danielle turned back to Ted. "Want to come with us back to the station? We could use your help, and I'm sure we could find an outfit for you. They don't have any uniforms that fit me anymore,"--she indicated her ten-year-old body--"but we have plenty of spare women's uniforms."
"No," Ted said, "I'm not sure I want to march into the station dressed like this. I'm going to have Ryan here take me to this girl's room and get dressed, then I'll head down. I can check out the town, maybe help people out on the way."
"All right," Danielle said. "See you later."
"Okay," Ted said, turning to Ryan as Danielle and Sidler drove off, "I believe you have a room to show me?"
