I know, I'm currently writing two other stories, but the thing is I always start writing something else when I have a mind – block on my other stories.
I don't know if it is good or anything, well, I hope it is, but if it is, please tell me. And if it isn't, please don't tell me … :D
Disclaimer: I have to admit sadly, that I own neither Taz, nor Up, nor the G.L.E.E or anything that you recognise from the musical. I know that my life sucks. But at least I do own the plot.
oooOOOooo
Chapter 1
El hombre que le salvò la vida
Tazia had never done anything to disappoint her family. Never. That was why she didn't say anything at all as her mamà forced her to wear a puffy white dress and covered her face with goofy make – up. Tazia hated to wear dresses, but still, her mamà and papà had saved their money for about, well, fifteen years.
"Se le ve muy bien cuando vas a bailar con Pablo esta noche," her mamà exclaimed and yet Tazia didn't say anything – again. She knew her parents wanted her to marry Pablo someday – well, in one year to be more exact - and it was a tradition to dance with the man that you are going to marry at your Quinceanera. She didn't want to marry him, though, but no – one cared. He came from a wealthy family and since her dad was a G.L.E.E. commander Tazia was a good catch, too.
The torture went on, with one of her aunts trying to shave her legs – which ended in loads of bloody scratches – another one plucking her eyebrows and a third one doing something with her hair that Tazia only found to be ridiculous.
"Mamà, necesito algo tiempo para tomar esta in," she said and as her mamà and her aunts nodded and left the room, she stepped in front of the mirror.
Tazia usually didn't spend her time in front of the mirror, since she didn't give anything about what she looked like. Her eyes looked much to big to be normal since she wore eyeliner and ridiculously long false lashes. Her dress went tightly down her torso and went down her legs in puffy layers. Tazia looked at the golden shoes she was wearing, took them off and smashed them against the wall. She then took out her much to big black combat boots and put them on, glad that the dress was much to big for her. Which was not really difficult since she was only fife feet tall. She would just tell her dad to let her wear them when he came to change her shoes.
"Usted es fuerte. Usted puede manejar eso. Sòlo tienes que ir por ahì y mostrarles lo duro que eres," she murmured under her breath while tears were streaming down her face.
Tazia wiped them away, furiously.
"Mamà, yo estoy listo par air," she called and her mamà stepped into the room. Apparently she had been waiting in front of the door all the time.
The elder woman looked at her daughter searchingly until she considered as indeed ready to go.
"¡Vamos!" her mamà finally said, grabbing her arm and dragging her to the small chapel in which the feast should be held.
As she was kneeing in front of the priest who was placing a tiara on her head and her papà went forward to place a high – heeled shoe on her tiny feet instead of the comfortable flats she had worn Tazia noticed that a man with piercing blue eyes was staring at her in a way that made her feel a little self-conscious. A feeling that she rarely felt.
Lieutenant Up hadn't wanted to come to Commander Lopez's daughter's birthday party, but since the old commander was concerned about her safety because of the robot attacks in Europe he had to. He hadn't believed his eyes as Tazia – or whatever her name was – walking into the chapel. For no particular reason he had always imagined her to look like her father – well, of course like a younger version of her father – but there was no such thing as any similarities. She had long raven hair – it probably went down past her waist if it wasn't tied up in a beautiful bun – while her father's was already grey. Commander Lopez had once told him that it made you age faster if you spent as much time as he did in outer space. Tazia also had large eyes which had the same color as dark chocolate while her father's were somewhere between green and light – brown. Up realized that he had been staring at her as she started to shift from one foot to the other, uncomfortably and tore his gaze away, immediately. He usually wasn't the guy to stare at girls he rarely noticed them anyway. But this girl was different; there was this determined look in her eyes that made Up feel quite sympathetically towards her.
"She's gorgeous, isn't she?" Commander Lopez said, sitting down next to Up again, after he had changed his daughter's shoes or whatever he had done.
"Yeah, she is," Up replied, fearing that his commander had caught him staring at his daughter, but Commander Lopez was probably just proud.
Suddenly Up was startled out of his thoughts; he had heard a sound that could mean only one thing – robots. He looked at his commander questioningly, but he shook his head obviously not wanting to scare any of the guests. But while doing so the commander reached under his seat and pulled out two zappers which apparently had laid there for the whole ceremony.
"Up," commander Lopez said, calmly, "take care of my daughter. Her life over mine and over everyone else's"
"Commander, I can't. I mean ya my -," Up began, but was cut off: "That is an order, soldier" he frowned at the commander, but said just continued, "Promise to me that no matter what happens you will take care of my daughter"
"I – I promise, sir," Up replied, grabbing one of the zappers out of the commander's hands and nodding firmly.
He slung the zapper's strap tightly around his shoulder, saluted to his commander, before he went forward to grab Tazia's, who looked slightly terrified on one hand and on the other hand relived, which confused him, arm in attempt to drag her out of the chapel. She didn't say anything, but let herself be dragged out into the hot, sunny day.
"Where are we going?" Tazia asked in a thickly accented voice, but she didn't seem angry or even confused.
"I need to take ya somewhere where ya can be save," Up responded and was confused as she just nodded.
The two of them had almost reached the underground bunker in which the citizens of the small Spanish town could go in to be save from the robots, as Up heard an all too familiar scream.
"Papà!" Tazia screamed and struggled to free herself from the Starship ranger's grip around her waist as he tried to hold her back, because she wanted to run inside to help her father.
"Don't ya worry, Taz, ya just wait here and I'll get him," Up replied, soothingly, before he turned around.
"It's Tazia," she responded, and it made him feel somewhat angry that she corrected him in a situation like that. But, well, he always got angry when someone intended to correct him.
But instead of starting to argue with her – for he knew that it wouldn't make any sense – Up just said: "Fine then, Tazia," and walked away.
The only thing Tazia could think about was that she didn't have to dance with Pablo if she died today. Or even better if he died today. That was why she didn't scream as a human looking robot shifted her in his cold, metallic arms and waited for three other robots to gather around her. One of them grabbed Tazia's ankle and held her upside down while the one who had lifted her up into the air said: "Let us play a game, shall we flesh – bag? I know you humans think it is rather amusing. It is called piñata"
The robots didn't need to grab the sticks from the floor, for she knew exactly where this was going to end.
Tazia would always choose the robots killing her painfully instead of marrying Pablo.
One of the robots swung his stick and smashed it viciously against her stomach and she felt blood dripping out of her mouth as she gave a heavy cough, but Tazia couldn't care less. The robot hit her again and she felt like she had to throw up, but Tazia really was willing to die if that would meant she could leave all that behind her. No – one ever really understood why she didn't like to live. No – one ever really cared, though.
Up had run into the chapel just to find Commander Lopez lying on the floor, bleeding heavily. And he also smelled the sickly sweet scent of burned flesh and as he looked around he saw some burned bodies lying on the floor, too.
"Up, fuck the hell off! Where's Tazia?" the commander said, weakly, while trying to crawl away from his lieutenant who looked genuinely concerned.
"Outside. I told her to wait so I can get ya, sir," Up replied.
"Are you mad? Get her and leave me. There is nothing left you could do for me," the old commander said and as Up just shook his head, he continued as sternly as he could manage, "Don't you ever dare to leave her. That is an order, lieutenant"
Up almost smiled as he heard his commander to say that again, it warmed his heart to hear how much this man cared about his daughter, but he just saluted again said: "It was a honor to serve ya, commander" and walked out of the church.
The first thing he saw was blood. Lots of blood; the whole ground was soaked with it. The second thing Up saw was a robot holding a bloody mess in a puffy white dress upside down by her ankles while three other robots were punching it with sticks. It took him a while until he figured out that it was Tazia.
If she would die today, Up hadn't obeyed to his order. He had to save her – it was the least he could do to respect his commander's – his friend's – memory since he had died so that Up could save his daughter. He took in a sharp breath and grabbed his zapper tightly.
Tazia saw Up coming towards her and tried to tell him to go away and leave her die, but the only thing that came out of her throat was a whimper and loads of blood.
"Get off her you sons of a bitch!" Up barked as he pointed his zapper at the robots and shot every single one of them that came into his way.
In his rush to kill the robots, he hadn't realized that one of them had been holding the girl, so Tazia hit the ground with a horrible 'thud' as Up shot that robot. He hurried towards her and saw that her forehead was bleeding so heavily that her hair looked bright red, but as Up bent down next to her he could feel her soft breathing against his stubbly cheek. It took a few moments until Tazia sat up and looked around, confused. Up grabbed her hand in attempt to raise her up.
"The robots aren't quite done with killing everyone yet. Tazia, we need to run. Can you walk?" he said and Tazia looked at him as if he had gone mad.
"Of course," she replied, sounding slightly angrily and frowned at him. Up realized that she also had a heavily bleeding cut at her temple.
Up started to run and since he was still holding her hand, Tazia had no other choice than to follow him. He knew it wasn't healthy for her to run in the state in which she was in, but it wasn't healthy for either of them to get killed by evil killer robots.
Tazia had always enjoyed running – she loved the wind playing with her hair, she loved how it just felt like flying – but most of all she loved that it was the only time when she could choose the direction in which she headed. And that was one thing – probably the only thing – that no – one could take away from her. And it somehow felt good to hold someone's hand, someone she knew she could trust, someone who had saved her life – even though she hadn't want him to –, someone who could protect her.
Tazia crooked her head a little – it hurt and she didn't know why – to look at Up. He was sweating and panting heavily – one of the things that she was glad about to live in Spain; it needed a little more than just running in the heat to make her sweat – and Tazia wondered how long the two of them had been running.
"Up?" she said, eventually.
Up did also turn his head towards her. He was confused that she didn't call him lieutenant, but he was even more confused that she knew his name.
"Where are we going?" Tazia asked.
"We need to find a place to hide from the robots until the drop – pod arrives and takes us to the Starship," Up replied.
"I don't want to go to jour estupido Starship," she said, angrily.
"It's not mine, it's ya dad's," he said, causing Tazia to stop muttering complains in Spanish.
It was the last thing that the two of them said for a long time. They kept on running for what seemed like days – they didn't even stop as Up called the Starship rangers to get them. Tazia was panting now, too, but still she wasn't sweating. Her lungs felt like they were burning and she couldn't remember ever being that thirsty in her entire life.
"Up, am I going to die?" Tazia asked, as she touched her head and realized that it was wet from all the blood she was still bleeding, though she hadn't even realized that she was bleeding.
Up stopped, eventually, grabbed his rucksack and pulled out a bottle of water.
"Drink," he said, softly – well, at least softly for him.
Tazia drank as much as she could – well, she could have drunken the whole bottle, but she wanted Up to have something to drink, too. He shot her a small smile, drank, and pulled out some bandages to wrap them around her head.
"Thank jou," Tazia said, smiling the tiniest of smiles and they began to run, again.
oooOOOooo
"Tazia, wait a second," Up said, eventually.
Tazia didn't say anything, but she stopped.
"Quick, hop on my back, I can run faster than the two of us combined," he continued and Tazia smiled inwardly, for this whole statement being totally illogical. But she grabbed his hand, stepped onto his bent leg and wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, while her hands were clutched in the soft, yet wet fabric of his t – shirt.
Up started to run and Tazia had to admit that she liked sitting on someone who was running even more than she liked running herself. She removed on of her hands from his collar to intertwine it with his hair. Even though Tazia didn't know why, she loved his hair and had wanted to touch it all along. It had the same color as caramel and was drenched in sweat.
The two of them kept running until Up suddenly fell over; he had tripped over a stone. Tazia who was sitting on his back dropped onto the floor, but managed somehow to land on her feet. Up was impressed that she, instead of mourn like most other girls would, asked concerned: "Are jou alright?"
"Yeah, I guess," Up replied and took off his shoe to look at his ankle, "I suppose it's broken"
She got up and grabbed his rucksack in order to find another pair of bandages which she wrapped around his ankle, carefully.
"Ya don't have to do that, Tazia. You're hurt," Up said, reaching out one hand to touch her still bleeding forehead, gently.
"Jes, Up," Tazia replied, softly, "but so are jou"
She looked at Up and smiled – a genuine smile – and suddenly he found a similarity to her father; her smile. It lit up her whole face, her eyes turned soft and it made her appear as if she wasn't almost killed by robots.
"Let's go," he said, harshly, while getting up. He didn't want to show how much he was taken off guard by Tazia's smile.
Up grimaced as a sharp rush of pain flushed through his ankle. But the thing was he didn't even know what it was about her smile. At first Up had thought that it was that it was exactly the same smile commander Lopez had always smiled – but there was something more. Something that caused a warm feeling in his stomach, something that made his heart beat faster, something that made him feel fond towards this girl – a feeling that he hardly ever felt – something that caused him to smile, too.
He turned around to look into Tazia's eyes, she was still smiling, but was looking concerned, though. "Jou're ankle," she said.
"Doesn't matter. The drop – pod will be here in less than three hours and we need to find a place which is big enough for it to land," Up replied.
"How can the drop – pod even find us?" Tazia asked.
"It's got radar sensors to do that for it," he responded, "we need to hurry now, Tazia"
She just nodded and grabbed his hand, again. Up was taken aback by her attitude, he usually didn't touch other people, but yet he realized how much he had needed someone to hold his hand. How much he had needed someone like Tazia.
The two of them started to run again, but Up soon realized that it was pointless.
"Shall I carry jou?" Tazia asked and he wasn't quite sure whether she was joking or not.
"Nah, better not," Up replied, "We'll just wait for them to get us here, won't we? I mean this place is big enough for the drop – pod to land"
"Up, do jou know what happened to mi famila?" she asked, eventually.
"Uh …," Up said, uncomfortably and sat down.
Tazia sat down too; he grabbed her hand in his and looked at her, concernedly before saying, carefully: "Well … they kinda … died"
"But – but I thought jou saved mi papà; I mean jou went inside to save him," she said, tears glistening in her eyes.
For some reason Up hadn't thought her to be one to cry, but he had just told her that her family had died, so it actually was not strange at all.
She got up and stared down at him, angrily.
"Yeah, I did, Taz, but he told me to leave to save ya," Up replied, soothingly while getting up, too.
"It's Tazia, cabron! Tazia! And let me go!" Tazia shrieked and tried to free her arms to hit him, but his grip was firm, "I hate jou! I fucking hate jou!" she continued and bit his hand so he had to let go of her arms.
Tazia then began to punch every single piece of Up's body until he tripped over and landed on the ground. He struggled to get back up, which was rather difficult since he couldn't stand on his right foot. Tazia gave an exhausted groan, rested her face in her hands, before she put out a knife, which had apparently been in her shoe. Up only then noticed that she wore black combat boots. She began to cut every single one of the puffy layers of her dress.
"What – what ya doing, girl," Up asked, concerned and grabbed her hand in attempt to make her stop, but he hadn't known of Tazia's reflexes.
She lunged forward and threw her knife in his face.
"Ow!" Up yelled and put his hand onto his eye where a cut was bleeding heavily. But he didn't say anything else; he knew that Tazia was right to be mad at him – but still, Up had saved her life.
"Taz – uh, I mean Tazia, I'm sorry. Look, he told me to leave and let him uh, die, so I could save ya," he tried to explain, but she didn't even listen to him and kept on yelling Spanish words Up couldn't understand, but he was pretty sure that she was insulting him.
Up limbed towards her, grabbed her arm and turned her towards him so that she had to face him.
"¿Que?" Tazia hissed and he tried in vain to get not distracted by the fact that her dress was so damn short now.
"I know it's my fault and everything. But if we want to survive out here we must stick together," Up said, angrily. Well, he tried at least to sound angry – well, he was angry at her for doing something to him that no – one had ever done before.
"I don't care whether jou die or not, esè," Tazia replied, furiously, but Up knew – hoped – that she was lying.
"I know. I mean I know that ya might hate me right now, but, uh, I -," he stuttered but he was cut off: "¡Callate! I will now take jour radio and then I will go away and jou, jou can stay here and do whatever jou like, bastardo"
"Stay," he said, softly and grabbed Tazia's hand, again, but Up hadn't forgotten about what she was able to do since the cut over his eye was still bleeding.
"Let me go!" she shrieked and suddenly Up cringed in pain; she had kicked him in the guts, even though she seemed much too tiny to do that, and stormed away.
Despite himself he had to laugh; this girl was one tough son of a bitch. Tazia stopped dead, turned around and glared at him, angrily.
"What de hell are jou laughing about, cabron?" she hissed, glaring at him like a tiger which was about to kill him and for some odd reason Up thought that she was beautiful – because she was like a girl he had never seen.
"I like ya," he replied, knowing he couldn't get much angrier.
"Oh, jeah? Well, jou didn't really show that by killing my papà," Tazia replied, coldly.
"Okay, girl, first of all I didn't kill your dad and second of all I saved your life," Up replied, angrily.
"Because jou promised my papà to do so!" she yelled and Up went over to her to grab her hand.
He locked his eyes with the tiny, yet terrifying girl's and Tazia was taken aback by how soft his beautiful blue eyes seemed as he looked at her. She tried to be angry, though, but it didn't work anymore. No – one had ever looked at her like that and it made her anger turn into some weird fuzzy feeling that she didn't want to feel.
"Yeah, I did," Up replied, "at first. But then I got to know ya" As soon as he had said that he wanted to take it back; it was quite possibly the stupidest thing he could have said.
Tazia didn't know what to think anymore, for it was basically his fault that her papà had died, but he had also saved her life and there was this strange feeling about which she wasn't quite sure whether it was good or not.
"We'll stick together," Up said, softly, grabbing her other hand as well and pulling her into him, "won't we?"
"Right through thick and thin, Up," Tazia replied, despite herself, but she was distracted by his warm fingers stroking over her own, tiny, cold, ones.
Suddenly she realised that she was shivering and it took her a few minutes until she figured out (relived) that it was because of the cold. None of them had realised that it was already dark.
"They'll be here, soon," Up said soothingly and placed his hands on the small of her back in attempt to rub her war.
Tazia smiled slightly, and as he looked down to meet her eyes with his he saw that her head was still bleeding. He sat down, pulled her with him and rested her head in his lap.
The two of them stayed like that – Up stroking her hair, absentmindedly, Tazia closing her eyes and seemed to be asleep – until the drop – pod arrived. He carried her into the pod, not even caring if she really was asleep. And he didn't care if the pain in his ankle was about to kill him, all that mattered to him right now was the petite girl curled up in his arms.
Up didn't let her go as he sat down in the drop – pod, he didn't let her go as he was forced to go to the sickbay, but he finally put her down on the small bed. But Up didn't stop looking at her as some medics wrapped new bandages around her head while another medic bandaged his ankle.
"Lieutenant, you can leave now," the medic said, eventually and Up looked over to Tazia, concerned.
"We will inform you as soon as she wakes up. And Commander Wayne wants to see you," the medic continued and Up nodded briefly.
The medic hurried over to help his colleagues with Tazia who seemed to be hurt worse than Up had thought. Up left the room and went over to Commander Wayne's office.
"Commander?" he said, while knocking at the door.
"Come in, before you destroy my door," the commander replied in his deep voice.
Since Up knew that it was pointless to argue that he was merely knocking at the door, he just opened said and sat down on the small wooden chair, commander Wayne had offered him.
"What ya want to talk about, commander?" Up asked.
"About this girl, Commander Lopez's daughter," the commander replied, "what were you thinking bringing her on board?"
"She's got no – one left, sir. She would have died down there," Up responded – well, actually there was a whole lot more, but he didn't want to tell the commander about his confused feelings.
"What are you planning to do with her?" Commander Wayne asked.
"Uh … what?" Up asked until he realised that the two of them were talking about Tazia's future, "Couldn't she just go to the academy, sir?"
Commander Wayne gave a cold laugh. "How old is she? Twelve?"
"Fifteen," Up replied, immediately, but the commander just continued without even listening to him: "But on the other hand, Commander Lopez was a really close friend of mine, so – you don't even know if she wants to become a Starship ranger!"
"And if she does?" Up said, excitedly.
"Then she'll still have to pass the test in three weeks. And you'll have to stay at the academy, too, for you'll be her teacher. Well, not just her teacher, but a teacher. And if she doesn't make it, I'll blame you. And if she'll die during training, I'll blame you. And if she'll die while she's on a mission, I'll blame you. And if she doesn't like the academy, I'll blame you," Commander Wayne said, sternly, but Up didn't listen anymore; he was able to spend time with Tazia for at least three weeks.
Up went back to his room, since he couldn't go to the gym as he would do usually and he didn't really know what else he could do at the Starship.
"Lieutenant," a medic said, while stepping into his room. Usually Up had beaten up that thin idiot just for entering his room, but now he was desperate to hear from Tazia. "Tazia wants to see el hombre que la salvo de vidà," he continued in a not really convincing Spanish accent and even though Up had no idea what that was supposed to mean, he still followed the man to the sickbay.
Tazia was sitting bolt upright in her bed and smiled brightly as she saw him entering.
"¿Como estas?" she asked, softly.
"No, Taz – I mean, Tazia, how are you," Up replied, glad that he had taken one year of Spanish class back at his High School.
He sat down on the edge of her bed.
"Oh, I'm fine, Up," Tazia said, and gave him a dazzling smile.
"Have you ever thought about becoming a Starship ranger? Because I'm pretty sure that ya would make a good one," Up said and told her everything that Commander Wayne had told him. Well, not the thing about her age, but everything else.
"Dat would be totally awesome! I wanna be a Starship ranger!" Tazia exclaimed overly excited and Up wondered for a brief moment if the medics had given her drugs.
"You really should sleep now," Up said, softly and kissed her freshly bandaged forehead before he got up.
"Hey, Up," Tazia called and waited for him to turn around to face her, before she continued, "since jou're to estupido to remember my full name, jou can call me Taz" He smiled fondly at her and nodded briefly. "I suppose I like Taz better, jou know"
"Me to. But Taz, you really should sleep now," Up said.
Taz nodded. "Up, will jou stay here?"
Up hesitated for a moment, before his smile grew even wider and he nodded his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll stay"
He sat down on the edge of Taz's bed again and watched her closing her eyes. Her breath became deeper and regularly. Up smiled slightly before he got up, carefully not to wake her – she really deserved to sleep – and went back to his room to go to bed, too.
oooOOOooo
Well, I don't really like it, but I like nothing that I write, so, well … And I made them fall asleep again. Please, please review it would mean so much to me.