Timeout

By: ChocolateEclar

Disclaimer: If I was Meg Cabot/Jenny Carroll would I be posting this on a fanfiction website? I don't think so.

Guys in gray suits: appear scowl

Real Disclaimer: All right, all right. ;; Sheesh… I don't own anything that has to do with this story except Miss Evelyn "Eve" Gemma and the plot. I wish I owned Jesse instead of Eve though, but no such luck.

Full Summary: (Post Haunted) He told me shifters can go back in time to stop someone from dying only once in their entire life. I just never thought he would rewrite Jesse's history in hope of getting to me. Now I have to decide whether to change Jesse's history back by stopping Paul from ceasing Jesse's murder or allow Paul's new version of Jesse's past to remain and Jesse to grow old back in his time – never meeting me. As the remaining keepsakes of Jesse's past begin to vanish, I make my decision… (Jesse/Suze)

A/N: This started out with quite a different plot in mind. Then I read the preview of Mediator 6, Twilight, on Meg Cabot's website and everything just clicked in my head. Go check it out in her diary on the site. It sounds awesome even though it's such a short preview. I hope Meg Cabot's Mediator 6 (which comes out in January 2005 apparently) isn't like mine because pretty much my whole inspiration is her tiny preview.

A/N 2: So here's my debut into the Mediator fandom! -

Prologue: Not Quite Yet

Timeout.

When you look the word up in the dictionary it usually says something like: "a short break from work or play" and something about sports and little kids. You could call it that, but I prefer to use the term when referring to the result of a certain shifter ritual, which is actually nothing like a timeout if you're fighting a ghost or another mediator, believe me…

But I'm getting ahead of myself…

"Have a seat," said Paul, gesturing towards his bed. Yeah, right, like I was going to sit there – the place he had kissed me last time and I had had to poke him in the eye to get him off me. I'll pass, thank you very much.

"Just tell me more about the shifters, Paul," I snapped – balling my fists at my sides and not sitting down. Just because he didn't scare me like he used to, didn't mean we were suddenly friends.

No, Paul Slater would never be a friend of mine as far as I'm concerned.

"Whatever you say, Suze," replied the other mediator, smirking. I hate that smirk.

He went over to his bed and reached underneath. He pulled out a different plastic box than he had the first time I had come. This one was gray and – unlike the other box, which had been filled with newspaper clippings –it was full of old spiral notepads. He pulled out a green one with the name Dr. Oliver Slaski – his grandfather's name – written in black ink in the bottom right corner.

I stepped a little closer, but kept my fists ready if he tried anything. You're here so Paul will leave Jesse alone, Suze. You're here for Jesse. You're here for Jesse…even though Jesse has no idea you're with Paul.

Meanwhile, Paul flipped to a page with a sketch of some glyphs surrounded a circle with a simply drawn eye in its center.

"This is a sort of Egyptian shifter time portal," Paul explained. "According to Dr. Slaski's research, a shifter can use it only once in their entire lifetime to prevent someone's death. But only once," he emphasized with a strange glint in his eyes.

I should've paid attention to that glint. If I had, things might've turned out differently.

"You mean shifters really can bring people back to life?" I queried.

"Yeah. Only one person though," Paul replied.

What if I had known this a long time ago? My life would've been so different if Dad were alive again. We'd probably still be living in Brooklyn, and I'd still be hanging out with Gina and eating pizza on the steps in front of her house.

But wasn't changing the past, well, wrong? Like if my dad had never died and I hadn't gone to live in Carmel, then I wouldn't be here to save Bryce from his dead girlfriend Heather. Meaning, Bryce would've probably died… There were loads of things that I wouldn't have been able to prevent and worse of all, I never would've met Jesse.

No, I would probably never use this time portal thing. It would jeopardize too much.

But, just maybe there was a use for it – just not quite yet.

A/N: I'm posting this at the same time as chapter 1, so review now or go to chapter 1, read it, and review. - Thanks.