Authoress Note: I do not own Human Target. At All. If I did, they'd still be playing the damn show and I'd have changed up some things here and there ^^ I do however, own any new characters that pop up in my stories... And my imagination when it lets me rule it xD
Extra Note: A long while back, someone wrote a fic about why Guerrero doesn't speak Spanish. I'm to lazy to go back and remember/see who wrote it (but I'm thinking it was cedricsowner), but I thought about it lately as I've been packing for school... So! Here's my look at why Guerrero doesn't speak Spanish.
Somewhere in Mexico"You get back here! Ladrón! Ladrón!"
He bolted. He was a fast runner. He prided himself in his speed. His arms clutched the food he'd just made away with, jumping over crates and dodging kids and weaving through the market. His wispy mouse brow hair, which he seriously needed to cut since he was getting way to long and shaggy now, slapped and waved in his vision as he glanced behind him, smirking as he saw the vendor he had stolen from. He was way behind him, stuck in the large wave of people out in the market today.
Satisfied, he ran until he ducked into an alleyway and slid into large cracked hole in a wall of an old building, pulling a large, old and rotting, crate infront of the hole to cover it as he dived deeper into the building. He grinned as he heard a low rumble of voices of all young ages, as he walked around a barrel and was almost knocked over by two kids chasing each other.
"Guerrero ha vuelto! Guerrero ha vuelto!" a young boy squealed as he ran and clung to his leg, before seven more kids popped out and ran at his legs, laughing and jumping up and down, chatting and blabbing away in Spanish as he handed them each an apple from the man he had stolen them from. They all cheered happily before they all ran off to sit and eat their food together.
Two apples remained as he reached in the bag to grab his own, looking around to give the last apple to his friend. He frowned when he didn't see her anywhere. Snapping his fingers, he looked at one of the boys sitting on a barrel and munching on his apple. "Miguel? Where's Calisto, dude?"
Miguel tilted his head and he huffed. Sometimes not being able to fully speak Spanish was damn annoying, man. "Uuh... Cuando.. Cuando Calisto?" he tried, and Miguel beamed before pointing up at a hole in the ceiling, a stairway of crates leading up to it. "Allá!" he exclaimed, before Guerrero nodded and ruffled his hair and ran to the crates with his apple and hers, climbing up the crates and sticking his head through the hole, glad that he was skinny enough to still fit through the hole as he pulled himself up and through it to stand in an abandoned and old room.
In the corner a makeshift bed was made out of a very old mattress and a truck flap for a warm blanket. There was a few crates set around a larger crate where beer bottles and cards sat. In the far corner near a small window with chunks missing out the side, sitting on one of the crates in the room, was a young woman with long, wavy, dark brown hair. Her brown eyes were cast out the window as the wind blew through softly. Guerrero approached her and held her apple out and under her gaze.
She looked away from the window and tilted her head down to accept the apple, before looking up at him with a smile, as he grabbed a crate and sat down next to her. He bit into his apple and she hers, as they remained silent, her gaze back out the window. In the distance, over the rooftops of the buildings splayed out around and below the window, was a long road. Down that road, if you kept following it, you'd find yourself heading towards the boarders. Beyond the boarders was America.
He had long ago ran away from his home in America. He'd hated home. His dad was a drunk, his mother having passed away. All he ever did was fight and hash it out with his ex-cop drunk of an old man. First chance he got, he packed a few belongings, and ran. Somehow he'd landed in a van of hippies who were traveling to Mexico to grow their "peace plants" for money.
Soon as they passed the boarder, he'd jumped out and walked to the closes city he could find. Once he found it, he'd found Calisto. She was part Mexican and American, her father a man from the states, her mother a prostitute here in Mexico. He'd left for America after their one-night and when Calisto was seven her mother had died of unknown reasons (Calisto thinks she was killed by her pimp or worse).
Unlike Guerrero, Calisto had never been to America. It was what she dreamed of. She dreamed of crossing the boarder and finding her real dad.. She wanted to believe he was a good man who would love and take her if he knew she existed. She had her mothers picture and something of his to prove she was his flesh and blood. She just needed to get to him. Guerrero personally believed her old man could be dead or be alive and not even want her, having maybe started a new life and family. But he kept that to himself.
"Welcome back," Calisto finally congratulated, finishing her apple and tossing the core onto the roof of one of the buildings below, leaning against the window. Guerrero tossed his core out with hers as he leaned on the other end of the window and watched her. He would be lying if he said he didn't find her attractive. She was two years younger than him, but she acted far older than even him.
She'd been in the streets even when her mother had been alive, having opted to stay away as she entertained her clients. She knew a lot more about this small city than he ever would, and for that he trusted her to help him get to safety, and save his life, when and if he needed it. Just like he would her. "You run into any trouble? Anyone follow you?" she asked, and he scoffed.
"No way, dude. They weren't fast enough to even keep up with me," he couldn't help but brag, Calisto rolling her eyes and snorting. "You aren't that fast. I caught you when we first met, remember?" Guerrero did remember. He'd stumbled into her alleyway and her old makeshift home and she'd given chase to him after she thought he'd stolen food from her home. He had, but he had gotten her more as a truce after she had yanked him back from getting hit by a work supply truck that he had accidentally ran out in-front of, decking him hard for being stupid.
After that, after getting her food and after she had saved his life, they'd been inseparable. She'd even went to trust him enough to meet the other, younger, homeless kids, helping her take care of them. Eventually he had come to see them as a family of sorts. Some of the kids even called him dad and Calisto mom (or padre and madre seeing as a lot of them could only speak a very small amount of English for him to understand), which he actually didn't mind.
Silence fell between them again, as Calisto sighed and stared up at the sky. "You ever tried wishing on a star?" she asked, startling him. That was an odd question he thought with a shrug. "Nah, dude. It's to childish." Calisto smiled and turned to look away from the darkening sky. She fixed him with an odd, sorta dazed, look. "Is it so wrong to act like a kid? You're only fifteen, Guerrero," she sighed, swatting at a fly buzzing between them. "You're still a kid, you know?"
Guerrero frowned but said nothing, as she shook her head. "Puede ser un dolor de cabeza a veces," she mumbled, and Guerrero grumbled. "Dude if you've got something to sat, say it in English, OK? You know I don't understand you when you talk like that!" It frustrated him when she would mutter and yell at him in Spanish. If you were going to insult and bicker at someone, do it in a language they understood.
Calisto snorted in an unladylike manner. "If you would keep up with my teachings, you wouldn't have to whine and ask for me to translate all the time." Calisto had been trying to help Guerrero with learning Spanish for the last two years they'd been with each other. Spanish wasn't to hard. It was just a bit confusing at time. And the natives spoke so fast it was hard for him to keep up! And he had been trying. He just wasn't catching it as faster... Language was not his thing, dude.
The two glared at each other for awhile, before his expression softened and he sighed. "Why were you asking about wishing on stars?" he asked, referring to her earlier question. Her expression softened as well, as she rubbed at her legs and looked up at the slow star filling sky. "Well... I want to make a wish tonight. A wish for luck."
Guerrero tilted his head and looked up at the few stars he could see, before looking back at her. Why do you want to make a wish for luck?" he asked, as she smiled before she became as serious as he'd ever seen her, turning her gaze to him. "I want to try to escape to America next week. A lot of young American teens come down at this time of year for their week long breaks! It would be the perfect chance to escape! I could sneak into one of their vehicles as they're leaving. It's perfect!"
Guerrero shook his head. He couldn't believe he was hearing this! "What about Miguel? Gabriel, Nico, Pedro, Nina? All of them? You just going to leave them? Those kids look up to you. To us, dude... We can't just leave them." Calisto looked away from him. The room was darkening, and it was getting harder to make out her face. "I can't look after them forever, Guerrero. They're young. They could have a family. They just have to want one. They just have to go to the church and the sisters will help them find families.
He couldn't believe he was hearing this... "We are their family, Calisto," he whispered, hissing almost. He couldn't believe she wanted to just give them away. He'd grown close to these kids. To her and this place. He knew they'd all get older and make their own path, but for now he and Calisto were the only ones keeping them alive and together. Without them, they're be hurt or worse. Calisto sighed in frustration, pushing up and off her crate to walk over to the bed. He heard her kick off her shoes and plop down on the mattress. "You just don't understand, Guerrero," she sighed out, before curling up on the bed, her back to him.
He stared at her, but said nothing. What could he say? He had said the truth. They needed her. He needed her. More than she knew. If she left... No. She wouldn't leave. She knew. She knew he and the others needed her. Rubbing at the back of his neck he walked over to the hole and began to climb down to check and see that the kids were asleep. He glanced at her once more, watching her curl the makeshift blanket around her, before he left.
-0-
Years later"I can't believe you don't speak Spanish and your name is Guerrero! That's like so wrong," Ames huffed, throwing herself onto the couch across from him as he typed away at his computer, storing away some of the data he had collected over this last mission, retracting the usb portable memory stick and sliding it into his bag where he could keep it safe.
"Dude seriously? It's not that big a deal. A lot of people have spanish names and can't speak a lick of it, Ames," he sighed in frustration. The whole mission she had been bugging him about it because she had to be his translator for the terrorist that had captured them and Chance as they had tried to rescue a Mathew Summers under request from his fiancee Zoe McConnell, who knew of her future husband overhearing the terrorist plans, and knew he had been going to the feds for help before he'd been beaten and captured.
It had all ended well of course. Chance had gotten Mathew and Zoe back together and the lowlife terrorist had been put away after Chance had called in a small clue to their old "friend", agent Emma Barnes. All done and good for a mission that had almost gotten them all shot and killed after being captured.
Ames, who still couldn't seem to let the subject of him not speaking Spanish go, waved her hands around. "OK that's true, but come on! You're the Guerrero! I mean I can remember people totally thinking you were this crazy Mexican guy who ran around in a trench coat yelling in Spanish as you chopped off peoples heads with a machete!"
OK that rumor was new. He raised a brow as Ames nodded to confirm that, yes, people really had thought that's what he was. "And seriously you'd think in your work you'd want to know other languages to save your life," she continued as Guerrero pushed his computer into his backpack. "Chance was the language guy," he answered simply. Learning a new language had always come easily to the blonde male and Guerrero had learned to just let him be the one to handle the language barriers with his boyish charm mixed in. It had always made the missions easier and quicker.
Ames sighed and threw up her hands. "Why don't you wanna at least try to learn Spanish?" she exclaimed, huffing and crossing her arms. "If you tried to learn, then you wouldn't have to whine and ask for me to translate all the time," she grumbled, and just for a second, as she glared at him, Guerrero saw Calisto. He froze for a fraction of a second, before he roughly picked up his bag and threw it over his shoulder. Ames gave him a puzzled look as he walked away, not even saying bye to Chance, who had been standing in the doorway.
Once Guerrero was gone, Chance gave her a look. "He doesn't want to learn because it reminds him of a friend he lost." Ames furrowed her brow and tilted her head, staring at the door Guerrero had walked out of. "What happened to them?" she asked and Chance could only shrug. "He doesn't talk about it really. I just know that he had a friend who had been trying to teach him before they were gunned down. He never told me the whole story."
Ames's shoulders slouched as guilt gnawed at her stomach.
-0-
He sat in an alley way in the El-Do, the light from his radio the only indication that the car was there, seeing as it blended well with the darkness.
He stared out the window, watching unknowing people walk by as the sky grew darker. He hadn't thought of Calisto in years. Hearing Ames and seeing Calisto in her had unnerved him. It was unsettling to see a ghost in the features of the living.
Calisto had been dead for years now. He hadn't been able to stop her. Two days after their small disagreement in-front of the window of the old abandoned house, he had woken to find she was gone. He'd ran. He'd ran to the next town. It was a long run and he ran til he felt he was going to collapse and pass out from the heat and the pain in his muscles.
When he'd made it to the border, military was everywhere. Car parts and fire were everywhere. Bodies too... Calisto's body among them. They'd been pulling a sheet over her to cover her face from the media, as he tried to run to her body, only to be tackled and dragged off by the soldiers.
He would later come to find out that she had jumped into a hijacked vehicle with others who were searching for freedom and family in America. They vehicle had charged the soldiers, who had fired on the driver, killing him and the woman in the passenger seat, causing the car to flip and swerve out of control. No seat-belt and all them crammed in the van... It was no surprise she didn't make it.
After that, all the bodies had been cremated and buried in near the towns church. Guerrero had left as soon as hers were buried. He'd ordered Miguel and Gabriel to get themselves and the others to the orphanage and stay there and find good homes. He'd spent the next two years traveling through Mexico until he came across the soldiers that had shot the van down, remembering their faces.
He killed them. Rage and hatrred and anger were all he had in him then, and he had been ruthless. After that he'd started gaining a name. He dodged police and would do small, odd and dangerous jobs for payment before the Old Man came to him to test him by seeing if he would shoot a traitor of his. He did it and that was all the Old Man had needed before offering him a well payed job working for him as a hired hand. At fifteen he became an assasin in training. By seventeen he started gaining a world known and feared name. By twenty, he'd become comfortable.. And by twenty-two he was introduced to a fifteen-year-old, blond haired, blue-eyed, stray the Old Man would later, affectionately, call Junior.
But over all those years, even while still in Mexico, he let what little he had learned from her slip away. Junior had tried to teach him, thinking he would like to learn. He'd rudely and roughly rebuffed the kids attempt and from then on no one tried to mess with him about learning another language.
Guerrero pinched the bridge of his nose, as he reached across to the storage compartment and pulled out a manila envelope with a bulge in the middle. He slide the contents out onto his lap before picking up a thin, old, picture of an older woman in her mid-thirties dressed in a rather skimpy outfit and holding a little girls hand; Calisto and her mother. The other item was a pocket watch with initials carved on the inside; D.P. Caliso's father.
Guerrero stared at the items and allowed himself to, just for awhile, go back to his younger days in Mexico with the dark brown hair and eyes elev-year-old who'd out-run marketers and cops with him as they held their stolen belongs close, high-fiving when they got away. For only awhile, he allowed himself to be a kid again. Like Calisto had told him he should be.
He opened his eyes, having shut them, as his phone went off, his ex-wives name flashing across the screen. Quickly shoving the items back into the manilla folder and back into the compartment, he flipped open his phone and hit the green button, chasing away memory road with the voice of his ex-wife asking if he was still going to eat with her and Jason at their house.
R & R Yeah I know. It's cheesy. But I kinda like a little cheesy now and again, ya know? Translation:
Ladrón! Ladrón! - Thief! Thief!
Guerrero ha vuelto! - Guerrero is back
Allá - Up there
Puede ser un dolor de cabeza a veces - You can be such a headchae sometimes
NOTE: My Spanish is horrible, I know I know. But I am simply using old notes I took from my high school classes from four years ago, so... Yeah...