Okay, so in the true spirit of me-ness, I just have to do an "immediately following the end of..." fic, since I just finished Aftershock. And I thought of this. Oh, and this is going to look like it gets dirty, but it doesn't really. Keep reading and you'll understand.
The first night was the hardest.
To Shelby, it wasn't like when Laura stayed late in the lab. It was the knowledge that she had no idea where her roommate of four years was. Somehow she'd gotten used to the sleep-mumbling, occasionally having to comfort her from a nightmare. The ones that were the worst when her partner in crime had gone missing, and when their resident Jedi had gotten murdered in front of her.
Shelby couldn't sleep.
She stared at the ceiling. She sang to herself. She had counted to four thousand when she finally gave it up. She wondered if she'd ever be able to sleep without someone else in the room again.
Since Big Blue had gotten removed from the school system a few hours earlier, "nighttime lockdown" just meant "don't leave your room, because the doors don't really lock anymore."
She got up, stretched and straightened her black nightgown. Yes, even the pajamas were color-coded. She didn't call, she just pushed the button to open the door, walked to the next room, and opened that door, too.
Wing was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall.
"Couldn't sleep," she mumbled, at the same time as he said: "That's why there are two beds."
She collapsed onto the spare.
"I snore," he warned.
"I know. I can hear you through the wall," Shelby replied.
He nodded. She was about to say something else, but not before she fell asleep.
She woke up at 2:18, to hear a voice mumbling. It wasn't the sound she was used to. She followed the noise to the bathroom, where she drew back the shower curtain to find none other than...
Franz Argentblum.
Rolling her eyes inwardly, she stumbled back to the main room and threw Wing's hairbrush at a spot right above his head. His hand snapped up, catching it, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes.
Shelby put a finger to her lips and beckoned him towards the bathroom. They stood in the doorway for a few seconds, and Franz sat up, eyes still closed, and and bellowed "NEIN!" before falling back down into the tub.
Wing suppressed a smile, but Shelby started giggling uncontrollably. Franz woke up and said something in German.
"English, buddy," Shelby said. He looked up at her for a few seconds before gasping out a garbled sentence.
"Why are you being in Wing's room in the middle of the night?"
"Oh, dear Lord," she sighed. She looked up at Wing, who almost looked amused.
"I was staying in Otto's bed, you pervert," she said. "I couldn't sleep."
"Well, he is being your boyfriend, ja?" He insisted. The room immediately got very, very uncomfortable.
"The... purpose of your visit being...," Wing drifted off.
Franz just sighed and looked at his feet.
"I am thinking maybe we should be leaving to look for the others." He was avoiding the fact that he couldn't sleep either, but he had a good point.
"It would be impossible." Wing muttered, bringing surprised glances from the other two. "And that is not a term I use lightly."
He let that sink in for a few seconds. Slowly, Shelby understood.
"He's right, we can't," she said. "Not without outside help. We're all trained in combatics. The only reason we were successful in any of the plans we had was because we had fighters, hackers, strategists, scientists... now we've got a hundred IQ points to share and the whole staff watching over the last three Alphas, us."
"Wait!" Franz exclaimed. "Nigel is emailing his father every week because Laura is helping his computer to be connecting to the internets, ja? Maybe we could be figuring that out and getting help."
Two ponytail-ed heads snapped in his direction almost immediately.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY THAT?"
MEANWHILE, IN A FARAWAY PLACE CALLED LONDON...
The Shroud dropped with a soft bump in a back alleyway littered with the bodies of rats and other small creatures. The pilot turned around and shook the boy's hand before the sixteen-year-old exile walked off the stealth ship for the last time.
Otto took the map out of his pocket, and turned it until he found the orientation he was looking for. He slowly walked down the streets he'd once known so well, basked in the sun he'd rarely seen in almost four years. He arrived at the address he was looking for, a wooden door concealing a GLOVE safe house identical to the one in New York City. He didn't knock, he just closed his eyes and forced the door to come open. He trudged in, closing the door behind him and collapsing into a chair at the kitchen table.
"Hey, kid," Raven said as she plopped a glass of water in front of him. "It's not the Marriott, but I guess you expected that."
He looked up at his bodyguard before dropping his head onto the table again. Wait a second, he thought. He reviewed the picture in his head again.
He stood up suddenly and crossed the tiny living space. A toilet flushed in the tiny bathroom, and it echoed through the tiny one-bedroom apartment. But that couldn't touch Otto now. He stood beside the portable crib, where inside a tiny baby slept.
"I bet you're the cause of this whole mess, huh?" he whispered, inspecting the child's red hair and freckle-ridden face. "God, you look just like your sister."
"Oh, right," Raven explained. "They can't exactly return home, so they're staying with us for a little while, if that's okay. And if it isn't, they're staying anyhow."
"'S fine," Otto replied, not really paying attention. He must have spoken too loudly, though, because the infant woke and started screaming at the top of his lungs. Luckily, a middle-aged man came out of the restroom and picked the child up.
"Who's this?" Mr. Brand demanded, pointing at the white-haired teen. He was a shorter man with a red hair and beard, and he was... not lacking in the waistband department.
"This is Otto. Not only is he extremely helpful, but he'd do anything to get your daughter back," Raven replied. Mr. Brand nodded and left the room.
"Wait, what? How did you know about that?" Otto asked, bewildered, his thoughts flitting instantly to Shelby.
"How did I know that you were expelled and your only chance of return is to rescue the missing students? Well, I was there when the order was given, to start," she said, rolling her eyes and then stopping for a moment. "Wait, what did you think I meant?"
"Otto harbors rather prominent romantic feelings for Miss Brand," HIVEmind said simply from the device in Otto's pocket.
"You didn't have to tell her anything," the boy said, groaning and executing a double facepalm, causing the lights to flicker slightly.
"It's as I suspected," the assassin called from the kitchen. "It's not like anyone can fail to notice the fact that all you've been doing for the past four years is staring at her. And freaking out when she got kidnapped. And stuttering in her presence. And the fact that I happened to notice the two of you... what's the term? Oh, right. Snogging. By the church. So, it was practically pointless to try to hide it in the first place."
Otto groaned in despair. Again.
TWO WEEKS LATER...
Breakfast was half a can of black beans. Uncooked. Second breakfast, ten minutes later when Raven was on the phone and not paying attention, was a seemingly snot-flavored protein bar stolen from the pantry. Third breakfast was a lecture from Raven involving a lot less words, more brandishing of deadly weapons. But Otto got the point. The snot-flavored protein bars were somehow even more precious than the black beans he'd split with Doogie(1) earlier.
Suddenly, there was an incoming call.
Raven picked up the online conversation, and it was Mr. Darkdoom.
"Hello, Diabolus," she said with a nod.
"'Sup, Mr. D?" Otto called from across the room. Raven glared at him, and Doogie started screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Do you have those supplies we needed?" Raven asked irritably.
"Yes. We will be at the meeting point in 46 minutes," came the distorted voice from the speaker.
"Do unto others," they said in unison, and then they cut off the connection. But not before a small sound perked Otto's ears up.
"Raven? Go back and play the last few seconds again. And turn the volume way up," he instructed. And so she did. And in the last moments, an unmistakeable voice carried across the room.
"Franz, give Aunty Shelby her brush back or she'll have to RIP YOUR HEAD OFF!"
Doogie is short for Douglas, by the way.
I started writing this the day after I finished Aftershock. Which was, coincidentally, my first day of high school. That Sunday night, I'd stared at the ceiling for seven hours, braided my hair several times, and did countless math problems. I almost fell asleep in my very first class of the new year.
And then I forgot about this. I'm a genius.
Oh, and review! Reviews make me more motivated to write more, so faster feedback equals faster story!