Title: Jake and Emma Get Lunch
Author: upsidedownbutterfly
Summary: … at Jungle Karma Pizza. Guess who they run into? Post-ep for "Spirit of the Tiger". Mentions of RJ/Casey.
Author's Note: Each time I edited this, Jake became more and more 200% done with the situation. The result is possibly over-the-top, but I'm not sure I care.
"Welcome to Jungle Karma Pizza. May I take your order?"
Jake looked up from his menu where he'd been rather skeptically debating the merits of kiwi and celery versus buffalo chicken pizza and felt his jaw drop in a way that was entirely not metaphorical. Across the table, Emma's nose was still firmly buried in her own menu, but she looked up when Jake kicked her – somewhat harder than he'd really meant to – in the shin. "Are you seeing this too?" he hissed, but Emma's eyes were already going wide which was answer enough to Jake's question.
"Oh, hi again," said Casey at the same time that Emma exclaimed, "You work here too?"
Casey shrugged in what Jake felt was an unfairly nonchalant manner, as though running into the same guy – no, make that same former ranger – in three different places over three days was something Jake and Emma should expect just to happen all the time. "Not really," Casey replied. "But I used to and my boyfriend owns the place so I help out when I can," he said as if that explained anything at all.
Actually, it kind of did explain what Casey was doing here now; upon reflection, Jake was grudgingly willing to admit at least that much. However he was still fairly confident it definitely did not explain these increasingly improbable chance meetings or why no one else at the zoo had seemed to have heard of him or how he'd disappeared into thin air, which Jake was sorry but he was still slightly hung up on that.
Jake knew he was probably gawking openly because the couple at the table next to them was starting to whisper to each other while shooting him strange looks, but he didn't particularly care. Casey might be ready to act like this was a totally normal occurrence, but Jake wasn't willing to pretend that this whole situation of repeatedly running into mysterious, vanishing ex-rangers was anything less than what it was, which was to say completely and utterly ridiculous.
Of course none of that aforementioned ridiculousness was even the worst part as far as Jake was concerned, because the worst part?
"The others are never going to believe this."
