Plunging in - I’m still kind of a newbie here, and this is my first time posting fanfic on this forum, so I hope I’m not stepping on any toes or breaking any rules. 
This vignette is basically a “teaser” for a bigger story arc, but how much of that will actually get written, who knows. Oh, and I know I’ve got Muntz too old, according to some threads on the Up forum, but I needed him this age for my overall timeline, so… there he is.
EDITED 2/28/10 - Trying to get back into writing mode… I’ve made a couple of tiny fixes to this one, but most importantly, I’ve rethought my timeline. I’ve now got Muntz at 25 at the time of the Newsreel, which meant changing the date on the photo. I’m also making one eentsy-weentsy change to “Cut” (something that just started bugging me), and I have every intention of doing a major re-write to “Late.” Anyway, changes to “Back” are minimal, but here’s the revised version.
Back
Carl’s hand was clammy as he gripped the handle and opened the door. He and Russell had been through most of the Spirit of Adventure by now, but Carl had kept putting off this room, until it was the last unexplored space.
It was just as he remembered it from the photos in Life Magazine – the December, 1933, issue in which C. F. Muntz had been named “Man of the Year.” The furniture rivaled that of the most glamorous Hollywood mansions of the era: Art Deco masterworks in a glossy burl walnut, with ebony trim, and aluminum banding around the bases. The dressing chest and bedside tables boasted deeply veined black marble tops. Italian. The word flashed through Carl’s mind – how on earth had he remembered that? The furniture was Italian. The bed was enormous, with a curved headboard emblazoned with the winged “M” logo in aluminum trim. Carl wondered if Muntz had ever found it too big. His own, modest bed had seemed so vast and vacant without Ellie, he couldn’t imagine sleeping alone in this monstrosity.
At the foot of the bed, atop the Turkish carpet, was spread a tiger-skin rug. Carl walked carefully around it. Having just survived his own encounter with Charles Muntz, he found the relic less romantic than he would have even a few days ago. To his right was the massive dressing chest, topped by a broad, beveled mirror in a stepped frame. The explorer’s everyday odds and ends were still spread across the dresser, but Carl hardly noticed them. His eyes were drawn to the mirror. Tucked into the frame, where it jogged in at right angles, was a photograph. No more than three inches square, it was old, and fragile, but the subjects still gazed clearly at him. Carefully, he slid it from the mirror frame, and adjusted his glasses to take a closer look.
A young woman smiled up at him, her arms around the neck of a large, black dog. Both looked as if they had been caught in the act of laughing; the dog’s tongue was lolling, and there were dimples in the woman’s soft cheeks. Her eyes were bright, and her short, brown hair was rumpled, somewhere between a wave and a curl. She was not pretty, thought Carl; rather ordinary, actually, but the smile lit her up and painted her as clever and engaging. The dog, who was actually more of an overgrown puppy, seemed familiar to him, and not just because of its resemblance to more than a few dogs in the current pack. Even in black and white, Carl could almost feel the sunshine and fresh air around them, and it brought back memories of his own youth, picnicking with Ellie on their Hill.
“Who’s that, Mr. Fredricksen?” Russell was at his elbow, craning to look at the photo.
Carl turned it over, and read aloud the inscription, in Muntz’s handwriting, on the back. “Dorothy and Magellan, 9/21/29.” With an unexpected twinge of 8-year-old excitement, Carl beamed. “Of course, it’s Magellan! He probably was just a puppy back then. He was Charles Muntz’s favorite dog,” Carl explained, holding the photo so Russell could get a better view. “We used to see him in the old newsreels. I can still remember him in the automated dog bath,” he smiled. “Magellan, Drake, Cortez… Muntz used to name his dogs after famous explorers. Ellie and I knew them all.”
“But, who’s Dorothy?” asked Russell. “Was she his wife?”
“No,” he shook his head, studying the laughing young woman again. “Muntz never married.” Rummaging in the memories of their childhood Explorers Club, Carl recalled, “He was supposed to. He was engaged to a girl – New York socialite. They called her the Most Beautiful Girl East of Hollywood – but you couldn’t prove it by me,” he grinned a little. “Oh, they were in all the papers; it was going to be the Wedding of the Century. Boy, was Ellie steamed about that!” he chuckled fondly. “Charles Muntz was supposed to be dedicating his life to Science, not marrying some silly powder puff. But, of course, there was all that business with the Explorers Society, and Muntz came back down here, and – well…” No need to recount the rest.
Studying the photo, Russell ventured, “She doesn’t look like a silly powder puff. She looks nice.”
“Oh, this isn’t the girl,” Carl said. “Her name was Daisy Van…Something-or-other. And she was blonde. And much younger.” He was contemplating Dorothy again, and noted, “This photo is nearly as old as I am. Charles Muntz couldn’t have been more than nineteen or so.”
“She doesn’t look like a teenager, either,” said Russell. “She looks old. Not elderly," he explained. “But – grown up.”
“Well, young people grew up quicker in those days. Dressed nicer.” Russell was right, though. Carl would have guessed her to be in her mid-twenties; certainly past her teens.
“Maybe she’s just a friend,” Russell suggested. “Or a cousin, or something.”
“No.” The longer Carl looked at her, the more he understood. This Dorothy looked nothing at all like his Ellie, but that light in her eyes, shining into Muntz’s camera, was too close to the light his own camera had always caught in Ellie’s to be misunderstood. “Whoever she was – she wasn’t just a friend.”
